Morass
by Ravenschild
Summary: Post TGG - Holmes is abducted, can he be saved in time before he goes insane? What happens when a Sociopath is forced to admit he feels? And can he cope with the fallout?
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer ** no infringment of copyright is intended, don't sue you'd only get the cat.**

Sherlock Holmes (BBC1 version)

Warnings: Slash content in later pages (non explicit)

Relationship: First time JW/SH

It was a moment, a slow deliberate turn made to look directly at the man behind him. Noting the stain on his jacket, blood most likely, nicotine stains against his left index finger, so smoker, and by the looks of the condition of his hands from an unfiltered middle eastern brand judging from the faint aroma. His blond hair was short, too close to the head and tiny burn marks at the temple indicate it was a quick job; the tan line very subtly masked by the crew-cut didn't extend into the exposed skin. Intellectually he knew all of this at a glance, heard the sirens wail behind him, the strobing blue light from the police vehicles and the welcome all be it strident tone of Lestrade from within the ruined building.

What he didn't understand until he fell forward into the waiting arms of the paramedic was the reason. Moriarty was dead, he'd seen the body, the wall had smashed into the prone figure as if he were nothing but paper, and that should have been the end of it. Sherlock frowned.

But fire burned through his veins and he knew that feeling well, understood the drug that had taken hold as the seemingly affable man in a Paramedics vest caught him easily under the arms. Sluggishly his mind provided that he was strong, the grip was firm and used to lifting heavy weights, but not corded and thick from body building, more likely a labourer, the musculature wrong for a paramedic. The fine sanding of brick dust could have come from the explosion in the pool, but then it was the wrong colour and the smile, it burned just a little too brightly as the man's breath whispered across his face. Laced heavily with nicotine and rotting teeth, Sherlock heaved against the stench but was lost as he was helped onto a stretcher and securely strapped down. All the while he struggled against the hands that held him down, against the drug that robbed him of his voice and he frowned again, squinting trying to focus, aware that the IV line was put in the wrong way as the pain burned into his body along with more than just the saline and the drug was topped up. The back doors closed and oblivion took him down into her gentle caress, his last vision was of John at the back of the ambulance screaming his name.


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N : Thank you so much for the reviews! and the alerts, really warms the cold places if you know what I mean. **Sorry this one came up and down still getting used to the interface and it my computer refused to release the correct chapter...grrr. Onwards and upwards...Raven_

It was like a nightmare, John Watson, late of Afghanistan, used to violence and pain and turmoil paced up and down Lestrades glass office as the cold knot of anger tightened his chest.

"What the hell do you mean you don't know where the ambulance took him?" His voice was quiet and precise and laced with just enough authority to have harder men duck for cover. Lestrade had yet to see what Major John Watson was truly capable of.

His friend, his colleague, his...John shook his head again stumbling on the final thought, was lost and these people were meant to help not hinder.

Lestrade's face was pinched. "Like I said we don't know. The Ambulance did not belong to any station; there are no hospital records that indicate a male of Sherlock's description as being admitted. And before you say it," Lestrade held up his hand wearily at the look of fury that flashed across the doctors face, and belatedly realised that to underestimate John Watson was probably a very foolish thing, "the CCTV footage of the area is helpfully blank."

Watson dug his hands deep into his pockets, fine plaster still clung to his short hair as he pursed his lips and frowned at Lestrade, he tried to ignore the myriad aches and pains he had acquired from the Semtex vest Moriarty had strapped him into and the subsequent building explosion.

The office door blew open as a particularly harried Sally Donovan pushed past him and dropped a pile of manila folders onto Lestrade's already dangerously over crowded desk. She planted her hands firmly against desktop and leant forward pushing her face close to the DI and sneered. "The Freak has done a vanishing act, and I for one don't see it as a particular problem."

Watson heard Anderson's childish snicker from behind him, and that was the straw that broke the camel's back. He straightened up and turned a furious glare on the lanky forensics officer. Perplexed and more than a little shocked by his expression Anderson wisely took a step back, unfortnately for him it wasn't far enough.

"You have something to say?" John asked his voice a quiet menace, Lestrade heard the different tone and stood but it was too late, far too late for Anderson to stop the diatribe that fell like pollution from his mouth.

"Upset that your boyfriend ran off and left you with a big paramedic?" Anderson taunted and Watson walked forward, crowding the man's space.

"I am not in a habit of repeating myself least of all you Anderson, Sherlock **did not **go willingly. Tell me was your medical training so lacking that even now you cling to your title rather than your salutation?"

"Ooh touchy." Anderson really was a fool, Lestrade decided, he should have known when to leave well enough alone, the normally affable doctor had a hidden strength the DI thought none of them had ever really seen.

"Anderson you are nothing more than a glorified civil servant and as such I demand that you remain at least at all time civil. One more word from you and I will put you through the glass!" Watson growled from low in his chest.

Anderson opened his mouth to speak as Watson spun on his heel in perfect parade ground routine and fixed Sally Donovan with a glare. "_The Freak_, as you so kindly call him, Seargent, has saved your arse and reputation far too many times." He turned a baleful glare back on Lestrade, "You invite him to do your work because your staff are so pitifully lacking, and you need him and ask for help, ignorant of his needs and careless of him as a person. You are a Scotland Yard DI and yet you think nothing, _nothing_, of allowing this insignificant rabble to treat him with little more than contempt? I wonder Detective Inspector what type of superior officer that makes you?"

There was a snort of protest from Anderson and before he got a chance to breath, the doctor grabbed him by the neck his hand crushing the larynx and windpipe as he threw him against the glass wall, his head bounced and the soft hiss of Watson's voice broke through his haze, "I said, one more word, don't doubt my ability to break you in two Anderson, remember I survived Afghanistan, am fully combat trained, and a surgeon. Think about that."

"Because?" Donovan's voice was a soft raw whisper as she stepped forward ready to intervene. She stopped stock still as the doctor's hand tightened on Anderson's throat and he looked back over his shoulder.

"Because," Lestrade pushed her towards the door, "he is uniquely qualified in knowing how to maim." His voice soft, and still the anger didn't disappear from Watson.

"Or kill." Donovan finished.

John nodded once and dropped Anderson, he scampered away shame faced and terrified with Donovan close at his heels.

"I have contacts within the hospitals that you don't and some of Sherlock's contacts know me as well I'll put the word out." John turned and saw Mycroft leaning on his umbrella at Lestrade's door.

"Let's not forget the rather large organisation I have behind me." Mycroft smiled, his grey eyes sparking with something close to pride as he looked at John Watson. "DI Lestrade, you will find that you have been reassigned for the duration to determine the whereabouts of Sherlock. You will also find that should you be unable or unwilling to give one hundred percent of your attention to this matter, I should take it rather personally, as no doubt would John. I'm not sure which one of us you should be more worried about."

"Mycroft?" John frowned.

"Oh, don't look so surprised John, you know how I worry. Now if you're finished, the car is waiting." Mycroft stood back and waved Watson ahead. "Today Detective Inspector, you will do your best to find my brother or offer any assistance that is required of you, _**today**_."

Lestrade let out a rush of air as he sat back in his chair, uncertain if he should smile, salute or have a stiff drink.


	3. Chapter 3

"The patient was admitted late last night. Mr Barnes was diagnosed as paranoid delusional with psychopathic tendencies in early childhood. His erratic behaviour left his doctor no choice but to have him forcefully admitted for observation, we have him sedated, at this stage and will begin drug therapy as soon as he is stable." The doctor looked down at the man strapped to the bed and smiled. It was not unpleasant or even malicious, however Sherlock shook his head. The drugs pumped into his system had rendered him mute and his body was strapped securely to a bed.

He blinked and tried to focus on the room and people. Fear clawed its way into his belly and he moaned pitifully attempting to speak. The nurse, dressed in a dark blue uniform with white piping, patted him gently and tucked the cotton blanket around his shivering form. The doctor obviously the registrar on rounds clipped his chart shut and put his hands into his pockets, the calm smile firmly planted on his round face, and Sherlock groaned again.

"Now now, Mr Barnes, you and I both know you cannot be allowed to continue in this state. It won't be long before someone gets really hurt. Your family have seen to the best of care. Please just try and relax, we will take good care of you." The accent was Northern, somewhere close to Yorkshire, but the nurses sounded like Southern, well with a slight hitch that said closer to Middlesex than London central. His mind helpfully went blank as he forced his eyes around the room.

Large, too large to be NHS, so private, he was in a private clinic and the diagnosis, psychopath, so a mental institution. He knew where he was, clarity like a bright flash in his sluggish brain and he felt helpless, blind and normal and that terrified him. He was at Chase Farm Hospital in Middlesex, a private facility for the mentally challenged.

The words filtered through his brain, he was in an asylum.

All be it, large and comfortable without the macabre threat of strait jackets and padded rooms, and that, more than anything caused the fear to rise again. All the more sinister for its very normalcy, he felt the first course of hot tears spill from his eyes and screamed inside his head, he forced him mind to clear so he could claw his way to escape their tender clutches.

A rush of warmth flooded up his arm and through his body as he thought before the drugs took him down again was that he was alone. That no one would find him, that despite his truculence to his brother and his single minded possession of John Watson that now he was gone, no one would remember him and he screamed again, this time it reached his lips before it went dark.

~~~~)))(((~~~~

"You've been watching us again." John Watson turned on Mycroft as soon as he was alone with him in the back of the sleek black Jaguar.

"Always, as I've said, I worry about my brother."

"I assume since you've given Lestrade his orders that you don't know where Sherlock is either."

"Unfortunately not, however, I have my people on it."

John pulled out his mobile phone and thumbed down the screen before he tossed it into Mycroft's well tailored lap. "I doubt that the ambulance would remain the same, however, I took a picture of it when I saw them strap him to the gurney. It was headed north."

"Excellent." Mycroft sent the photo and information direct to his command centre and sat back, the umbrella tapped on his hand crafted shoes.

"When, um, was Sherlock diagnosed as a Sociopath?" Watson asked quietly, all the while he looked out the window of the car, he absently noted Mycroft's assistant "Anthea" was not with him.

"You doubt the diagnosis Doctor?" Mycroft's eyes despite the gravity of the moment crinkled in wry amusement as he looked at the dishevelled man next to him.

"Whilst he exhibits some sociopathic tendencies I doubt that he is as removed from his feelings as he would like to think. I've met Sociopaths Mycroft, they tend to be charming and gather friends like moths, and most people fall to their whims because of their sparkling personality. Sherlock whilst a genius has no regard whatsoever for people."

"Please continue, this is fascinating," Mycroft drawled and John bristled.

"I'm not a psychiatrist Mycroft, but somehow they got him wrong. What I didn't learn at Barts, I did on the battlefield of Afghanistan, Sherlock is not a sociopath so who diagnosed him? And why?" John's anger returned again, he hated medical incompetence. _**First do no harm,**_ well someone had failed in their duty of care and harmed a child if John read the situation correctly.

"Navarin, the manor please." Mycroft spoke to his driver. "Sherlock was only six." And something like true pain crossed the Government Officials face. "They were on vacation in Juan Les Pins in the south of France. I was still at boarding school when there was an accident. One of Sherlock's little friends drowned and Sherlock witnessed it. As you can imagine the shock of something like that to a tiny child is devastating. However, he didn't behave as they wanted. The child's father was a well known psychiatrist and was grieving the death of his child proclaimed when my brother didn't weep and wail that he was a sociopath, which in his opinion Sherlock felt nothing."

Watson harrumphed in his seat despising the damage this man had done to his friend. "And from then on Sherlock withdrew emotionally?"

"Quiet correct John, even from me, and despite what he might say or do, my brother and I were close, and always I have loved him." Mycroft frowned again as he looked at his hands. "He has chosen a life which scares me John, and I am incapable of protecting him, now as I was then."

"But surely, your parents had him re-evaluated? "

"No Mummy wouldn't allow Daddy to do that, she has always said she knew her child and that to have him evaluated at all, given our social status, would be embarrassing."

"Embarrassing?" John shouted and flung himself back into the seat. "He has carried the stigma of a mental illness all his life because your mother thought it would embarrass her social set?"

"Not at all." Mycroft smiled again at the strength of conviction in the man who was his brother's friend. "She thought that it would be a stigma to have it proven, that Sherlock would have to wear the taunts of being in therapy when there was nothing wrong with him."

"Oh." Watson closed his eyes, the anger draining from him, leaving him impossibly tired. He would fight to get his friend back, despite what he had to do. Vaguely the medical side of his brain recoiled at the thought of violence and the soldier smirked in his mind and chanted softly bring it on.

"You have to understand, Sherlock was an odd child, made even more so by our families social position and the frightening intellect he exhibited early on, he was also a late child for our parents with some ten years between us."

"Um.. Why are we at the Manor?" Watson looked out the window at the heritage listed building and shivered.

"Because Baker Street may not be safe, and you need to be at the command centre."

"Mycroft?"

"Yes?"

"Thank you."

"You've got it wrong Doctor Watson; it is me who thanks you. I'm glad that Midge has a friend who can see passed the caricature he has made of himself."

"Midge?"

The elder Holmes smiled softly and drew a deep steadying breath before he got out of the car. "Midge. He used to buzz around me like a tiny fly as a child, and he was the most ethereal and dynamic toddler you could ever meet."

Somewhere despite his fear and his misgivings Watson found a smile on his lips. Perhaps the Holmes family wasn't as bad as he first thought, as he trailed behind Mycroft into the broad entrance of the property and was ushered inside.


	4. Chapter 4

"Mmmm." The ward doctor rubbed her manicured hand along Sherlock's forearm and hummed aware that her patient was unable to speak. "Self harmer." She clicked her pen against her teeth as she looked at the various degrees of mutilation to the pale skin. He had made the marks during a brutal winter in a vain attempt to feel something, anything other than the fugue, Sherlock knew she lacked the capacity to understand and he did his best to glare at the woman.

There was something terrible and intelligent in her eyes as she wobbled in front of him on her Jimmy Choos. "Blade or razor?" she asked again as she clicked the pen against her teeth. Her fingers were relentless up and up into the crook of his arm she traced little circles to gauge his reaction to touch, she smirked when he hissed out a breath. "No needle tracks, but still there is an addict in there isn't there my dear?" Another click of the pen punctuated her morbid fascination.

"Mmmm we must be careful with psychopharmacology with you then, can't have you become addicted all over again can we? Would be bad form to addle that brilliant mind." Another click of the pen against her teeth as she walked around the bed. "Not excessively underweight but still, you don't eat regularly, blood work confirms this, which is why you were so easy to subdue in the first place. Too much adrenaline and no body mass."

Sherlock did not trust to touch and she had sensed this as drew out the indignity of bare flesh. She pulled his shirt open which revealed a well defined pale chest; her hand tapped his stomach and watched for his reaction. The monitor he was strapped showed his blood pressure was low, and he was cold, damn the woman for _**touching**_ him. She had unnerved him already, smug in a surreal kind of way, but still professional until she ran the flat of her and across his abdomen down below the waist band of his shorts and stopped just short of his genitals. He drew in a deep breath and stayed still, eyes blazing furiously at her.

"Call." He finally croaked.

"Mmm you want to make a call?" she bent her head down next to his mouth.

"Call." He nodded; she smiled sweetly and flicked the cotton blanket back to cover his frigid torso.

"Sorry, no can do, not yet, we have to have you properly medicated first." Her fingers wandered back to his forehead and he barely had time to suppress the revulsion of her hand on his bare flesh.

"Don't." Again another undignified croak.

"Oh my dear, I'm here to help you get better, we mustn't be like this we will have to get to know each other soon."

"Piss off." He glared at her and the mask she had adopted dropped finally as she sat on the end of his bed.

"Let's get one thing straight shall we, my dear. No one will care if you scream, cry or beg no one will believe you are anything other than what your chart says here 'addicted self harmer with psychotic tendencies'. The orderlies will keep you restrained, I don't like getting my hands dirty, and I will use whatever pharmaceutical's legal and otherwise, I deem necessary in your treatment and it will burn you. Which may change from time to time, I'm so changeable it is a weakness of course, but I will decide what's best for you." She smiled again and this time his sluggish mind caught up fast, dark hair and dark eyes, the very best of smart clothing under the white coat, her French manicure perfect against his skin, her smile feral and cold and he shuddered again.

"Sister?" he stumbled the word.

She smiled again, this was why Jim had liked him of course, he was bright, and she clapped her hands together a little too eagerly and smiled down at him. "Twin." She said softly. "You see, I understand you. Physical pain will weaken your resolve but it will not break you. You yourself have used pain in order to feel." In his drugged state he couldn't hide the shock of the unnerving accuracy of her statement and she smiled again. "And since you're a self proclaimed Sociopath, harming or attempting to harm your pet or family will also elicit little response in your psyche. Therefore we have to be more creative."

Despite the cold room he felt sweat bead his upper lip as his eyes tracked her movements. She was of course beautiful in a malevolent way, tiny in stature, fine boned and porcelain but under that a keen intellect and he would have been tempted by her at least intellectually but now, fear swam far too close to the surface and he fought to tamp it back down.

"So physical torture is out, sexual is a possibility as is emotional but only if you're receptive. And you're not receptive yet are you, Sherlock?" her voice caressed his name as she whispered across the room. "So we must make you human. You will learn to feel, and you will learn the true nature of fear and I will both break you and put your considerable skills to use for me or I will break you and leave you a gibbering heap in the corner. Either way, my dear, sooner rather than later your incredible mind, your sanity and your body will belong to me. And you cannot stop me." She reached forward again and cupped his face, warm lips against his forehead as she stepped lightly away. "You see my dear; there is nothing I want from you, and no secret you can give me, no words to make me stop. I want to see you suffer and you will burn."

He sniffed again a haze of pain overwhelming him as his body was locked rigid by the drugs seeping in through the canula.

"LSD." she breathed in his ear and smiled maliciously, it was then that the hallucinations began...and this time his scream joined the dozens around him, welling up inside his brain and out, the world turned inside out and he felt the white hot pain sear his skull, his mind becoming blank and then all of a sudden it stopped. Just enough to let him breath and with it the despair, alone. The single word scorched into his mind, always alone.

He knew how drugs worked, he knew very well, but this was different. So real, he reached a shaking hand forward to touch the glass window that had appeared before him and he could feel it on the palm of his hand. Cold and thick, he balled his fist and began a frantic beat, his hands bloody and bruised and he could feel the pain, ricochet up his arms and into his shoulders. Just there, on the other side, family, Mummy, Mycroft and to the left John and they all looked over at him, they saw him but he was dismissed as they danced away, Bach's concerto for 2 violins in D minor, an almost sombre tempo as they disappeared from sight, his heart hanging heavy in his chest, and he looked down at his hands, red, the blood that seeped from them was red, the floor, the walls, the window, his tiny window on the outside world, smeared with the red obscuring his view until he wept. Sleep, his brain told him to sleep, that it was illusion, but it was one of his own making. Alone again. Always alone and he curled on the bed, unaware the restraints had been removed. It didn't matter, there was nowhere for him to go.

Moriarty's twin gloated as she watched him curl, foetal and sobbing into the blanket.

"Oh dear, dear." She tutted. "Mustn't let you sleep like this with those nightmares. Too cruel." She smoothed her hand across his brow and smiled down at the stricken man. "But you see now don't you my dear. I am all you have, and I will look after you, you just have to submit."

She stepped away abruptly, high heels clicking on the lino floor. "Do whatever you must, but keep him awake, water, drugs, stimulants whatever you need he does not sleep."

~~~~~)))(((~~~~~

"Two days Lestrade, two days and no idea where he's gone." John Watson paced across the dark red carpet in the front room of "The Mansion."

"We'll keep looking." Geoff knew it was inadequate, but still it was all he had, that and the conviction that Sherlock was still alive.

"I've put a note on the blog and on Sherlock's web page, see if someone takes the bait and I've called in his Homeless network – see if any of them can come up with a clue. I'm going to Barts tomorrow to have a chat to some of the registrars as well; maybe he slipped through a crack."

"Anderson and Molly are already working on some of the areas." Lestrade finished quietly, he knew John would pick up on the morgue; a flash of pain crossed his face as he stopped in his restless orbit and finally sat down. "I'm sorry John."

"As you should be. Protect and serve isn't that the creed?"

"Close enough, for what it's worth, it won't happen again, you were right, we are careless of him, and I should have protected him, I didn't, God help me I didn't think he needed it."

"Yes well despite his pathological urge to drive us all insane, he is human Geoff, and at times words hurt even Sherlock."

"John?" The soft sibilant whisper of Mycroft cut into the room, and Lestrade sighed, he would never understand how the Holmes brothers could be so light footed.

"Any news?" the hope in Johns face was a fragile thing but behind it was something else, a conviction that no matter the outcome he would see this through.

"None I'm afraid, Mummy asks if she should come back."

"Not yet, there is little she can do right now, besides probably best for us all to keep busy."

Mycroft nodded. "Yes my thoughts entirely. My people are working on Mr Moriarty's body now, we'll see if we can find anything useful."

"Thank you."

And in a brief rustle of fine linen and a tinge of Hugo Boss on the air, as silently as he dropped by Mycroft Holmes was gone. DI Lestrade looked agape from the door and back to the unassuming man in the wingback chair, Mycroft deferring to John Watson was an interesting change in the dynamic and he frowned.

"I'll be back at the yard, you've got my numbers John, and I'll be in touch."

~~~~~~~))))((((~~~~~~~~~

Twelve minute later a photo text was sent to a mobile phone in London, the recipient, Dennis Barker forwarded it on to a friend and so it grew, twenty nine minutes later every homeless person, shelter and restaurant owner who owed life or limb to Sherlock Holmes knew he was missing, and several hundred sets of eyes covered the city more assuredly than Mycroft's ability to control CCTV cameras. It was a silent testament to the man some called Freak, because now, an army was forming.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N - Thank you so much for the reviews, the plot bunny is feasting happily to my left. :)

"_People have always misunderstood the basic principles of life on the streets. See you, and I mean that in the broadest sense, look at the street urchin, the homeless man, the prostitute and you assume, wrong or right that they have reason they are where they are. Reasons that we find reprehensible, how can so and so from such a good family manage to be in that position? Lacking totally in the extremes the ability to care, such a thing never occurs to us except in their sanitized world. Where they believe that they should be able to take care of themselves, go to school, get a job, have a home, be normal, and all that rot. People are useless and pathetic, take Levi over there," Sherlock had pointed at the young Chav. "He got top grades at school, loved his life, welfare Mum, absent Dad but he was doing ok, but then, our friends the local coppers, decided he fit the profile of someone else. Hounded day and night and finally he said, fuck it. If I'm going to get blamed might as well have the fun. And there was no one there to stop him from self destructing."_

_John pondered this for a moment and saw the validity in the statement, despite it offending his personal view of his fellow man._

"_I'm told I don't care, that caring costs too much, and in essence that's true. Whether I care or not is immaterial, but I do help where I can, with what is important to them. It fails to touch me, it fails to move me to tears, such emotions are not important to me. You're a doctor dedicated to helping people ,you even worry when I, the most recalcitrant and unappreciative man on the planet, don't eat, yet I'll warrant even you, who wear your heart on your sleeve, would find it hard to connect so totally to your patients. The futility of becoming a nervous wreck in order to care, it doesn't stop you from doing your job, doesn't stop you from wanting to heal, but you rarely bring it home with you, because you are taught you cannot save everyone, every time."_

_John nodded his agreement, normally Sherlock didn't explain his actions, or his lack of reaction on a personal level, but the old woman dying because of the game had unnerved him that night. Right before the body was found on the banks of the Thames. He had advised John against making him a hero. He had never understood the necessity to show he cared, but it was there, if you looked. John remembered the money given to the homeless girl, the scarf Sherlock had taken from his own neck and wound about that of a skinny kid no more than ten, the meals he would order and pass out windows, or the work he would find for them. The Holmes Homeless network, adored him, he didn't look down on them, just accepted them for who and what they were. Drug dealers, petty crims, pushers, pros, all of them to Sherlock were just people, who didn't deserve his ire or his pity._

It had been something of a revelation to John that night, and now, days later the words replayed in his mind, if they were going to find Sherlock they would need the very same people that most looked down on. With this in mind he rugged himself against the cold, pushed a number of small bills into his pocket, took his mobile and set out from the warmth of the living room with its open fire. Mycroft looked up, one eyebrow raised and a smirk on his face.

"Good hunting." He said from behind the Times. "And John, do stay in touch, one family member lost is one too many."

So now he was family, the Holmes family would never fail to surprise him.

~~~)))(((~~~

Angelo got the message just at closing time, his Mr Holmes was in trouble, and that was not on. He'd have to do something about it, his wife, Celia, God love the woman understood and patted him gently as he leaned across the bed to plant a kiss on her cheek.

"I'm going to talk to my boys."

~~~)))(((~~~

"They found the ambulance." Lestrade said breathlessly as he bounded up the stairs to the Mansion and took in Mycroft's impeccable demeanour, even at nearly midnight.

"Excellent, where?" the elder Holmes pulled on his overcoat and wound a scarf around his neck, eerily reminiscent of Sherlock and Lestrade's gut twisted.

"Spitalfield Markets in the car park, some kids called it in to the local boys about an hour ago."

"I do hope you have kept your forensic man away from it."

"Anderson is not on the case sir."

"Good." Mycroft held the door open, urbane, charming and ever so slightly sinister in his demeanour. "Shall we?" long fingers already beginning to text and "Anthea" appeared in the back seat of the Jaguar as it pulled up at the curb.

"Where's John?"

"Out chasing up the nameless unwashed I should think. He'll meet us there."

~~~)))(((~~~

She of course had made a mistake, but then the clever ones always do, Sherlock thought hazily. She had thought to teach him to feel with her drugs, to stop his mind working, to torment him, but she didn't know, and could never understand.

She could not torment him with things that he tormented himself with daily.

His over active brain stuttered but never once failed him even now, freezing and naked on a hospital bed. Too overcome with sleep deprivation and drugs, wet from the cold showers he had been subjected to, burning spots of pain on his face where the orderlies had continued to slap him to keep him awake, and the hunger that burned in the pit of his stomach. Vaguely he assumed it would cause an ulcer but then dismissed it. They had of course fed him, but when he took the food into his mouth and eaten within minutes fingers were down his throat forcing him to vomit the contents of his stomach until it ached and spasmed with the pain. And now they laid food out for him and he knew that the touch it would cause more of the same, he was after all a quick learner.

And the drugs, he knew hallucinations when he felt them, saw them, years of misuse of recreational substances taught him to know what it felt like and he had come perilously close to losing him mind in the delusions. But even then, when it was self inflicted he pulled back and knew who he was and where. Conscious of his sense of reality and self, but now, good lord he cried as the pain rocketed into his violated body. Another IV line was inserted this time in his foot, and the hands on him, touching him, turning him, molesting him in ways he never understood, ways that were a parody of the gentle caring touches other had bestowed. Even Angelo with his propensity to hug him at every given moment never felt dirty. He shivered as hands roamed freely across his body and he looked up through red rimmed eyes that wept shamelessly and saw her face.

"But you are such a delicious prize Sherlock, one I fully intend to use, I own you now, all of you, body and soul; your mind, well broken or not soon I will own that as well."

Sherlock moaned as he watched her go and left him with them, the two orderlies with their big hands as they towelled him down with cold clothes and turned the fans on as he shivered, unable to even close his eyes to the indignities.

~~~))(((~~~

Six hours later in the freezing cold and with an ache in his shoulder that would not be assuaged John kept tramping, finally down to Vauxhall Arches he drew a juddering breath and leaned against the wall. Tired beyond all belief he pushed himself to continue when silent footed a young boy sidled up to him.

"Spare change Doctor John?" instinctively he dipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out a note and held it up.

"Depends on what it's for." Even to his own ears he sounded flat and tired.

The boy laughed and the sound echoed in the hollow tomblike environment. "Cup of tea, somfing for the little ones to eat."

"Good cause then." John handed over the note which the boy hid in his sleeve.

"He has a sister, some doctor up north."

"Who?"

"Moriarty. Some fancy clinic, mind you my boys are still looking."

John felt the blood rush from his head and he slid down the wall. "E's important to us Doc; don't give up on us yeah?"

"Never." And the boy was gone, just as he received the text from Mycroft and the black car pulled up the back door opening and he pulled himself into the leather seats, grateful for the warmth.


	6. Chapter 6

_A/N: Again so grateful for the reviews! If I could work out how to pm back to all you lovlies I would but my brain is mush **sorry** On to the fun..._

Recently in life John had often thought that he was too old to be shocked anymore.

He'd seen the soldiers torn up by road side bombs, shot full of shrapnel and screaming for their mothers, he'd held a man's heart in his hand as the other surgeon attempted to stop the massive bleeding, the boy whose name he couldn't remember, had died within minutes.

As if the insanity of war wasn't enough it hadn't stopped there, the one year old boy, with shrapnel in his skull from a Taliban bomb, or the baby that crawled away from a rocket that had landed on the family home only to be found with a grenade in her hand. _Casualties of war_ the home office had called them.

They counselled him to forget all the trauma's of the past, each and every one and on a good day he did. But on the bad days he remembered it all, when he was in charge of men and machines, when men looked to him, surgical units listened when he spoke and his movements saved lives, day in and day out. Many of his friends didn't make it out and those that did were not whole and sane, they survived peace for a few months before they reenlisted or swallowed a bullet or a bottle but few managed to fully reintegrate to society, the walking wounded, of which he thought bitterly he was now one.

He tipped his head back against the expensive leather in the car and watched as London's streets screamed by.

He knew his heart had been hardened, knew that he thrived on the thrill of the adrenaline that shocked his system, every day he woke to the uncertainty of whether he'd see another sunrise or not, and he had loved every terrible minute of it, and then that fucking bullet. It tore through his shoulder and rendered him useless, his left hand shook with the remembered trauma, not a good thing for a field surgeon and without even that skill he was left useless and broken.

He waited for days to rise and find within himself that tiny core of humanity that was his soul, waited for endless weeks as a patient in a VA hospital for the spark to reignite his life and his desire for life. Then he felt he was useless, nothing ever happened to him, until he met Holmes.

The most infuriating, enigmatic and brilliant man he had ever met in his entire life. And he'd met some really brilliant people, some of his lecturers at St Bart's, his CO a hardened war torn veteran who took as much pride in his work as he did in his grown children back home. But the truth was no matter how horrible war had been for Dr John Watson, peacetime was truly terrifying, he struggled to keep up with the simplest things, the chip and pin machine at Tesco's being the latest. But it was more than that; it was the frustration of having no one, being nowhere and invalided back home. There had been days he would have preferred that the bullet was a few inches to the right and he wouldn't have to live through the interminable days. And then he was back to Sherlock. At times he felt so uncertain of himself, as though a small wounded creature that had lost the will to live and the ability to be useful, then Sherlock would smile and proclaim him brilliant! He chuckled to himself and the driver cast a quizzical eye at him in the rear-view mirror.

"Would there be any point in my asking where we are going?"

"Spitalfield markets, Sir." The response was immediate and he nodded. He knew that they had found the ambulance, what he didn't know was what was inside.

When they arrived, the police had cordoned the area, Sally Donovan couldn't meet his eyes as he walked passed her to where Lestrade and Mycroft stood with identical grim faces.

"He's not in there." Lestrade spoke before ordering the forensics team to be careful with the evidence.

"No." Mycroft held up a bag of shredded clothing and Watson blanched.

Of all the things he had seen and done, of the men he saved to the ones he killed nothing had ever bought him to his knees until now. Inside the bag was Sherlock's clothes, down to the underwear all cut with a sharp blade with just the tiniest flecks of blood. The mere thought of that wonderful man, naked, incapable of looking after himself, vulnerable in the basest sense, caused the blood to roar in his ears, he turned to look at Mycroft whose grey eyes had become unreadable but he knew that a similar expression mirrored his own.

"Moriarty has a sister." His voice even to his own ears sounded so far away.

"Sister?"Mycroft pulled out his phone and started texting. "How the bloody hell did my people miss that?"

"Anything else John?" Lestrade asked as he pushed an orange blanket around the doctor's shoulders and a cup of weak tea into his hand.

"My source says that she is up north somewhere and a doctor at some fancy clinic, so probably private. She's probably married or divorced so the names are not likely to be the same. Could be why your people missed it." John nodded to Mycroft, his eyes still not leaving the interior of the ambulance. "Can I, ah, take a look?"

Lestrade nodded. "Help yourself."

The evidence in the back of the ambulance did little to improve John Watsons disposition, littered on the floor were the empty packets for syringes, and cannulas. Discarded needles but no evidence of a tussle, so obviously he was strapped down and subdued, then stripped and moved. He hopped out of the ambulance and looked around the floor of the car park tiny pinpoints of blood and like a dog with a scent John tracked them and looked up. A smile cold and feral lit his face and Donovan who had followed him took a step back, it was cold, and she remembered that this innocuous little man was a combat trained veteran.

"Mycroft." John yelled in his command tone and the elder Holmes was by his side before he realised he'd moved. "Up there." Watson pointed. "Look the blood trail ends here, they moved him into another car and up there on the roof are CCTV cameras."

Lestrade smiled, bloody hell, now Holmes had Watson doing it, one was bad enough but two...he shook his head.

"Wake up the managers and get us in there!" Lestrade bellowed.

Days had passed without clues, without a break and now finally Watson felt they could in fact find Sherlock in time. They knew how, when, and now why, it would only be a matter of time.

~~~)))(((~~~

"So anyway as I was sayin' me older brovers missus works at sum posh spot up North." Raz smoked endlessly as he fidgeted from one foot to the next, Angelo wanted to reach forward to the little weasel but stayed his hand he hadn't recently had a tetanus shot.

"I don't really care if she was fucking the Prince of bloody Wales, what I want to know is he there?"

"Yeah, yeah, 'e's there but that doctor she's a right bitch and there's a coupla tossers up there that tore me out by the scruff of me neck. Mr H is in a bad way, they got all these needles in 'im and I don't fink they let 'im sleep eiver..."

"So your contact?"

"Me what? Oh yeah Ash works in the kitchen, as one of them managers."

"Good, good I need to have a little chat with Ash can you fix it for me?"

"You gonna get 'im out? Mr H saved me from me Da reckon I owe 'im one."

"We all do son." Angelo patted him on the arm. "Now get off and find me a way to talk to Ash, work to do!"

~~~)))(((~~~

Cold, so very cold that he could no longer feel his feet or fingers, the only warmth in his body from around the myriad points of injections; he breathed deeply, two in each arm, one in his left foot and another one terrifyingly close to his genitals.

His throat sore from vomiting and screaming, his eyes almost completely swollen shut and his body was no longer his own, he couldn't scratch, couldn't move, they cleaned him and purged him and now all that was left was the hunger that was a dull ache. The urge to run and scream from this place of pain a distant memory of when he was capable.

She didn't count on something's though, like his tolerance of pain and psychosis, and his low boredom threshold, John had once said it wasn't even a threshold more of a very shallow puddle. Ah John, good old Doctor Watson, with his cups of tea, and loyalty and those big brown eyes that could see straight though him, who had the audacity and courage to call him an idiot. Who cared undeniably about him, when all others and all else had failed to. He was not the most endearing person to be around but right now, all he wanted was to be at home in Baker Street, watching crap telly and listening to John in the kitchen.

Sometimes he could even smell the food John would make, such was his sense memory, and for the loss of that he wept ashamedly.

All he wanted was to be wrapped up and comforted by the one man who would stand by him at the gallows foot and after, who would never stop looking for him. This one man became saviour and salvation and in a moment of clarity Sherlock missed him so much that a sob was torn from his throat. Vaguely he saw the orderlies come back in with their damp cloths as they wiped him down and dosed him up again.

Another hallucination, going to the ballet, pah. He spat, the first act of defiance in days. Ballet? Oh really how boring. Sherlock began to giggle, despite everything they had done, despite the pain, he could still be bored.

"Boring! Bored, bored, bored." He shouted and continued to laugh as his brain shut down and he fell into unconsciousness.


	7. Chapter 7

_A/N: And I must admit I am still totaly awed by the support this tale has engendered and it's my first Holmes fic...Thank you all so much, even the plot bunny is once again feasting happily..._

Arabella Constance Winston nee Moriarty clapped her hands together like a child in a sweet shop as she looked down on the recumbent man. His eyes swollen and shadowed as he fell into a deep horror filled sleep, if she read the moans and sobs correctly. But this time she left him to sleep, the restraints firmly back on his legs but now a warm blanket was thrown over him. A tiny act of mercy and kindness she expected him to be grateful for. She could be sweet, and she all but drooled over her prize. Daddy would be so pleased that she had the man that had cost them James.

Mind you James had been a bad boy, he drew attention to himself because of his ego and Daddy hadn't been pleased, still he had been killed, probably by his own foolishness and this man. She scowled again her pretty face betraying a fine edge of carefully concealed insanity.

"_Dangerous thoughts_" she said to herself. She decided that what she was doing was right, if Daddy didn't have James she would make a gift of Sherlock to him. Broken and obedient, and oh so brilliant, maybe Daddy would even forgive her and let her go home.

She looked at Sherlock again, her grin was lethal for through the drugs, and the torture he had endured, one name kept being whispered on broken lips, one name that would be the key to break this man entirely. She crept out to the room and closed the door, and almost skipped down the hallway.

~~~)))(((~~~

"How the hell did it get to be so fucking weird?" Lestrade asked as he sat down next to John on the slightly damp bench.

John shrugged, "Sherlock's a force of nature I guess and for every positive reaction there is likely to be a negative one."

"You could have knocked me over when he let you move in you know?" Lestrade looked at his companion sidewards as he sipped the piss weak cup of tea. The strobe lights from the EMS and police cars made the area surreal and John fought his headache back down.

"I, um, I guess he just needed a hand with the rent." John rolled his shoulders; his eyes never strayed from Mycroft's furious scowl as he hissed down the phone.

Lestrade laughed at that, long and loud. "Oh please." He wiped his eyes with his hand.

"What?" John was in no mood, in fact he had been downright dour since this whole mess started and he was at odds with himself. A part said run now, and another more insistent part reminded him of his own heart.

"John for God's sake take a look. Mycroft is rolling in money, the Holmes family is one of the wealthier ones, and you mean you haven't looked them up on Whoswho?"

John shook his head.

"Honestly? Sherlock doesn't need the money, despite the trust fund he earns as you see into the five sometimes six figures on a single case. And if that all goes pear shaped he has a solid degree in Science from Oxford. Fuck he could be a Don if he wanted."

"Ah, really." John frowned and leant forward, elbows on knees as he turned to look at Lestrade. "Really?"

"Really. You my friend are living with a genius. When he finished his degree man he was what twenty two, light years ahead of the rest, was in fact just about to do his masters in multiple disciplines when he placed for graduate work at the Yard."

"He worked at Scotland Yard?" John smirked, no wonder he knew he way around so well.

"He never told you?"

"I never asked."

"Ah, another reason why he likes you I guess. He lasted all of four days before he declared us all morons and went on to solve a rather complex case within a matter of minutes. The Super suggested that he join the force."

John spluttered his tea out and laughed himself. "Oh I would have paid to see the reaction to that."

"Yeah well, obviously he didn't, he did a couple of research programmes at Barts and then went out on his own. All on his own mind you Mummy Holmes and Mycroft are still not too happy with me. Apparently I feed his addiction."

"There was a time I would have said it was the lesser of two addictions, now I'm not so sure." John closed his eyes, they felt like sandpaper and he longed for a decent cup of tea and a good night's rest, even with the haunted strains of Sherlock's violin to interrupt him every five minutes.

"True, but you spotted Sherlock's other little problem early on yourself."

"Your fake drugs bust didn't help. You know, he actually thought I'd move out after that."

"I was desperate John, and as you said I've often been careless of him as a person. Something I'm grateful over the kick up the arse for."

"Any time."

"So you and Sherlock?"

John turned to look directly at the DI and fixed him with a cold hard stare before he relented and shrugged briefly. "Are friends."

"Yeah keep telling yourself that mate." Lestrade smiled.

"At the moment, it's all rather complicated and complex, if, when I get him home then we will discuss this thing between us, not before."

Lestrade sobered for a moment and smiled. "You're a braver man that I am Doctor."

"And I've got the scars to prove it." John smiled and felt some of the tension leave his body. "How long before we get in to see the tapes?"

"Mycroft's people picked them up an hour ago."

"So then why am I sitting here in the cold?"

"Not sure but looks like Mycroft is headed this way." Unconsciously Lestrade straightened his spine.

"There are no Doctors, Medical students, lawyer or professors with the surname Moriarty that we can find. Further there are only three in total in England, one is dead the other one is in a nursing home and the third is ninety five years old."

"I assume your people looked in Scotland as well?"

Mycroft frowned, "Yes and Wales and Ireland, honestly John they may not be as professional as I want but they are not incompetent."

Lestrade stood to leave. "I know your people have probably already done this, but I will check with Interpol see if I can find a connection. In the meantime I'd like to see the CCTV footage."

"Of course." Mycroft inclined his head. "John I think it's time we went home."

~~~)))(((~~~

Ashley Burridge was a big girl in every sense of the word, but despite her gruff demeanour had a genuinely sweet heart and the tears that tracked her face were very real; Angelo offered her a serviette and a cup of coffee. The restaurant was closed now and only the light of a single candle lit the table.

"This same man that had Raz's da arrested?"

Angelo nodded, "And he got me out of long prison term for murder. He's an odd one is our Mr H but he's ours girl and we look out for our own."

"Thought he was some kind of Toff, you know all proper talk and stuff. But then I heard him crying and that bitch has her two goons parked outside his room day and night."

"Isn't anyone let in? Laundry? Food?"

"She ain't feedin' ' im Ange it just ain't right. I remember 'im you know, all skin and bones, and tall and gothic lookin' but he still made time for us and the little ones. Saved Lorna's life too, when Da went inside, she moved on, did good, kids went to school. He even helped her get a job, not brain surgery, but housekeeping and she makes good money now."

"You've seen him girl, how did you get in?"

"Took 'im in a tray, came back untouched mind you. Don't think he remembered me, I've got a bit fat since I saw him last." Another tear rolled down her face as she brushed it hurriedly away.

"You got a plan Ange?" Raz asked as he helped himself to crisps from behind the bar and threw a packet to his mate Jimmy.

"Thinking of one." Angelo bit back angrily. "If you're hungry eat from the kitchen not from my stock that costs me money!" He snapped.

"Maybe." Jimmy's voice was always soft, had to be, if he yelled he stuttered, but he was shrewd, all of fourteen going on fifty. "Ash these goons, are outside his room yeah?"

"All the time."

"So do they eat?"

"What? Yeah the girls take them up a tray."

"Good, if we talk to that poncy chemist bloke you know Raz we could put them to sleep for a bit. Angelo can go to work with Ash in the kitchen and when they pass out, Ange can grab him and make a run for it. Cousin Davy's got a van we can use."

"But they got wires and stuff in him." Ash shook her head, bless the child, Angelo thought she had four kids at home and really needed to keep the job, but then Mr H wouldn't let her starve, he'd see her right and he put his large hand on her arm.

"Do the other ward Doctor's see him?"

She shook her bleached blond hair from her face. "No."

"How about nurses?" Jimmy leant next to her and she hugged him.

"Yeah, yeah ok one of the girls I work with knows about nursing."

"So she could unhook him yeah?"

"I think, kids, its best if I go to work with Ash and have a look see first, and then we'll make plans. But Jimmy sounds good; we just have to make sure the details are right. She'll come after us, and we'll need to hide him, and warn Doctor John not to go home for a bit."

"No worries Guv," Raz did a passable interpretation of the Artful Dodger at times and they all smiled. "Doctor John's holed up at the Manor with Mr H's brother; we'll get Lucy to have a chat with him in the morning."

"Good good. Meet me back here in the morning, I'll make breakfast."

Raz and Jimmy smiled as they nicked another packet of crisps each and ducked under Angelo's big hands. Ashley went out the back and left Angelo alone to his thoughts. It was all about payback now, to those who would hurt their Mr H, and to the man himself, dear lord as odd as they came, the Homeless network loved him. Angelo cracked the knuckles of his large hands and went up to bed to the wife with a smile.


	8. Chapter 8

_A/N: Thank you again to my wonderful readers! We are about half way now with the story. Soon I promise Sherlock will get rescued! :) _

Angelo sipped his early morning espresso and winced when he realised he hadn't changed the pressure of the machine and it made the brew especially bitter. On the bench in the kitchen he'd laid out a simple but hearty breakfast and right now Billy, his front of house, was busy keeping up with the hoard of people in his restaurant, despite the closed sign on the front door.

Big Joe finally arrived and with him came a sense of order. Like Doctor John he was an ex vet one of the many that now swelled the civilian population of Great Britain. A fully trained combat veteran, who attempted to slot back into civilian life after his discharge had struggled. Very little job openings for those who had come back, looked great on a resume but you weren't likely to get a job because of it. In fact nowadays it was more likely to get you looked at with derision and suspicion, and the cops, useless buggers they could be, didn't realise that the violence on the street hadn't escalated really, just more of the average man who was no longer afraid to stand up to the scum, who took back his street, or corner of the world. Angelo pulled another espresso through the machine and handed it to Joe as he called the room to order.

"Okay we have the beginnings of a plan thanks to Jimmy last night and we've got access via Ash, so what we need now is to work out the arrangements."

"Do you have a blueprint or plans of the hospital?" Joe's voice was soft and deliberate, almost timid, but under that was truly a hard man.

"Yeah, Mix got em off their website last night." Billy joined in and pointed to the teenage hacker.

"Well let's see em then?" Joe folded powerful arms across his broad chest as the plans were dutifully tacked together on sheets of A4 until the kitchen bench was completely covered. Silence reigned for a few minutes before his soft voice echoed again. "State of the art surveillance equipment, getting in and out with Mr H will be hard, especially since we don't know what condition he'll be in. So I suggest we run a double blind."

"Huh?" Billy grunted, not the brightest bulb in the box Angelo thought.

"Ok, Angelo you go in with Ash this afternoon and get into the room, see what's what yeah? In the meantime Mix can you handle their security remotely? Get a few cameras turned off?"

"Easy, their security is shit, barely even password protected."

"Good, cameras go out here and here." Joe pointed and looked around. "Angelo goes into the kitchen and calls back via the mobile let me know how much assistance Mr H can give to his own rescue yeah."

Angelo nodded.

"Carmine will organise a delivery to the kitchen of meat, we'll rig the back with a stretcher, and it's already got ramps if we need to use a wheelchair."

"Ok, good but what's the double blind?"

"McKay's wife." Joe smiled with undisguised glee.

"Because?"

"She's tall, blonde and very very persuasive. She'll go in front door, and demand to see her uncle who she will be told was there, but they will have no records, whilst there she'll have a medical emergency which will cause a stir at the front, security will be called to the main entrance, leaving the back free of support. We take Mr H out down this hallway, Mix disables the fire alarm and we load him into the truck."

"So far so good, but we need more Intel don't we?" Angelo asked.

"Which, my friend is why you are going inside, you will have to disconnect him from any medical equipment and get him into the chair, he's a tall lad but I'm sure you could lift him."

"He weighs nothing, is why you keep trying to fatten him up." Angelo's long suffering wife smiled as she saw the condition of her kitchen and tutted.

"You know he's mates with Lestrade and his brother is well connected, just why aren't we telling them?" Billy asked and all eyes turned to him.

"This nutter may have inside connections to the cops, they could kill him long before they get there, besides they all get bogged down with legalities of search and entry and what not. Quicker for us to do it under the radar." Joe answered.

"Okay let's go, Mix set up upstairs use the WiFi and check out their systems, make sure you can get in. I'll get ready to meet Ash."

As the room cleared Joe hung behind and caught Angelo's elbow in a strong grip and steered him into the restaurant proper.

"I know that look Joe, out with it." Angelo pulled his long hair back into his trademark ponytail and peered intently at the other man.

"Doctor John."

"And?"

"We are going to need immediate medical support for him Ange, I know what drugs do to a man, especially one like Mr H. You may need to knock him out to keep him quiet."

"I had thought of that, he may not even recognise me, Ash said that the bitch had him truly fucked up."

"Just so long as you know, can you disconnect him from the equipment?"

"Won't know until I see him, but we need other medical support, Doctor John is probably being watched by her cronies. Can't have him lead them to us before we get him into his brother's compound."

"Agreed. So we will use the squat in Camden, and get Sally to sit with him, you will have to stay with him, we have a better chance of him remembering you, than me. We'll move him to the compound late tonight if all goes well." The two shook hands with a solemn nod.

~~~)))(((~~~

"But I want to see Doctor John." The little girl stamped her foot and demanded at Mycroft's door. Pretty red curls bounced against her shoulders, a well worn and filthy doll clutched in her ten year old hand, and a grimy Brittany Spears T shirt clung to her tiny frame.

"What's all the commotion?" John came to the door and tapped Davis on the shoulder. Mycroft's butler was well used to strange happenings and just shook his head.

"Miss Lucy here wants to see Doctor John." Davis smiled as he turned to the ex army surgeon and opened the door fully.

"But of course." John lead the way through to the front room, aware Mycroft was off overseeing a war in some far off place. "Now what seems to be the problem? Are you sick?"

Lucy just rolled her eyes. "Of course not." She huffed. "Am hungry though and I got a message for you, this place safe?" she looked around the room suspiciously; more wary than any small child had a right to be.

John felt his heart rate speed up as he sat down with the child next to him. "Far as I can tell, yes."

"Ok, Mr Angelo says that you're not to worry, but he needs you to stay with Mr Mycroft or Inspector Geoff, that you're not to come near the network again because you'd be interfering."

"Interfering?" John felt the anger rise and the child saw this as she leant against his side.

"Doctor John, we love him too and they are going to help but you gotta stay put, if you do anything odd it might mean he gets hurt even more."

"Oh God, you know where he is?"

"Me no, the boys don't tell me being because I'm a girl." She rolled her eyes again. "But I hear things, and they want me to tell you to stay put, if all goes well they will have Mr H sorted soon. Okay?"

John felt hot tears course down his face as her small hand wiped them away and she kissed his cheek. "How badly is he hurt?"

"Don't know, but you must promise Doctor John, just give us two days. Okay?"

He wrapped his arms around her and nodded against her shoulder. "You want to eat?"

"Of course. Nice digs by the way, think I could get adopted?" she grinned.

John was never more acutely aware as he was in that instant how Sherlock had impacted on all their lives, this irascible, recalcitrant, patrician of a man, touched hearts, souls and minds. And he wondered if Sherlock even knew, but then dismissed it, Sherlock seemed to know just about everything.

~~~)))(((~~~~

"Fuck." Lestrade bellowed as Sally Donovan cringed opposite him. "Fuck, fuck, fuck." There was a smile on his face as he slapped the documents in his hands, he flipped open the phone and hit speed dial.

"Mycroft." Came the distant and bored reply.

"We've got a hit from Interpol. We have a retired Professor of Criminology living in Basel, Switzerland. Has one child and adopted twins back in the mid 80's, his name is Moriarty."

"Do you have a contact for him?"

"Working on it, seems his adopted son is currently in the morgue, the daughter married Frederick Winston and has been in and out of mental health care most of her adult life. She married her psychiatrist; we're looking for his records now."

"Ah."Mycroft breathed into the phone. "It's why we couldn't find her. She not a damned doctor, she's a patient."

"Criminally insane by the sounds of it." Lestrade breathed.

"My God Geoff, and she has my brother." Mycroft by now had most of Arabella Winston's history on his phone and when he scrolled down the list his stomach lurched at the savagery of the woman.

"We'll find him. I promise you we will find him." And for the first time in many a strange and tiring day DI Lestrade no longer felt helpless as he grabbed his coat and headed out the door.

~~~)))(((~~~

Sherlock looked up through bleary eyes and at once recognised he was no longer cold, well not as cold as he had been, and his head was a little clearer.

Long fingers stroked his body intimately and he arched back into the touch before he realised what was happening.

"See now, we can play nice, and you can enjoy it. All you have to do is submit Sherlock."

He groaned and curled as far forward as he could against the rail of the bed and away from her hands.

"Behave for me and you can eat today and keep the blanket, misbehave and I'll have to punish you again because you've been bad haven't you?"

He nodded as tears streaked his face. He was tired, so tired and her hands were soft, and the blanket was warm and he couldn't think, only feel.

And his mind snapped back, feel where the skin has rubbed clear of his body from being naked on the starched sheets, feel the throb at the multiple injection points, he could feel the itch of the beard on his unshaven face and the salt that had dried from his tears on his cheeks. He ached, body and soul and all he wanted, all he needed was John and he cried again.

"Please stop." His own voice weak and confused and her hand curled into a claw and cut into delicate skin, drawing blood as he shuddered and sobbed on the bed.

"See now, pet has to stop demanding of me. You will play nice eventually, but now you've upset me." And the drug once again filled the canula, only this time it paralysed him, vacantly he thought it must be a diluted form of Curare. Fear ratcheted up into body as the cotton blankets were withdrawn swiftly and he shivered as his hands were cuffed to the bed in complete naked surrender to their whims. He tried to close his eyes and couldn't and his mind refused to give up the unequal fight, totally submerged in the helplessness. He watched the hands of the orderlies, strong, vicious and utterly dehumanising as they set to torment him again. This time he couldn't even scream as the scalpel flashed close to his eyes and down to the soles of his feet as they began the shallow cuts. Eventually he passed out from the pain, as the blood pooled into sheet.


	9. Chapter 9

_A/N And again thank you...__**"**The game's afoot: Follow your spirit, and upon this charge, Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!' (Shakespeare - Henry V, Act 3, Scene 3)_

~~~)))(((~~~

"Yes well, what you don't seem to realise is the collateral damage that can be done in the week since Sherlock was taken." John paced the floor like a caged tiger, Mycroft and Lestrade kept track of his movements as the command centre hummed around them like a giant machine. "He will have lost some of his core strength and to his lower limbs, there's every chance his immune system will be severely compromised which could result in pneumonia, tachycardia, and decreased kidney function. Dependent on what drugs they have administered, if they are trained doctors or not, the wound sites of a bedridden patient can become the site of massive infections which will attack the heart and lungs. And let's not even get into the pressure sores."

"You say that with certainty you think there is more than one IV line into him?" Lestrade pinched the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger.

"According to the alarming number of kits in the back of the ambulance I'd estimate at least four." Mycroft added his voice sombre.

"In his arms at least. I've requested your lab to do a tox screen on the substance and I'm praying it's not heroin." John went pale as he ducked his head to one side and then shook it.

"He's beaten addiction before John, he will do it again if necessary." Mycroft seemed very certain and Lestrade nodded his agreement.

"I know, but we don't know what his physical or mental condition will be when we get him back."

"You seem certain we will get him back." Lestrade was a shrewd operator as he assessed the smaller man.

"Sherlock's network, told me to stay put and keep out of it, they have it under control." John answered rather distractedly.

"Did they tell you where?" Mycroft's tone was acerbic his anger evident.

"Do you honestly think I'd still be here if I knew where he was?" John spat, his own temper barely kept in check at the suggestion.

"No one's saying that John." Lestrade soothed. "But up north is pretty vague – are we looking in Scotland or Yorkshire? Where? Do you know how many hospitals and facilities there are?"

"Doctor remember? Of course I know, dozens if you count NHS, goes into hundreds when you look at the military, private clinics, rehabs." John cocked his head to one side. "But, I think we are going about this all wrong."

Mycroft arched his eyebrow at the Doctor and inclined his head in an eerie impersonation of a raptor. "Indeed?"

"Look she has access to money if Geoff's Intel is correct."

"Yes, a significant amount." Lestrade agreed.

"And she is no doubt brilliant if her twin brother is a comparative intelligence marker yes?"

"So?" Lestrade hated feeling stupid but obviously he was missing something given the predatory gleam in Mycroft's eye as he steepled his hands beneath his chin. John's heart nearly stopped when he saw the movement, which did not go unnoticed by the elder Holmes who folded his hands in his lap.

"So Detective Inspector, she is most likely masquerading as a doctor in a facility with a false name, she would not be able to keep Sherlock hidden if they doubted her word."

"Ah, so if we do an employment search of all the facilities from London north within the last five weeks we should be able to narrow the field down." Lestrade caught up quick as he flipped his phone open and called Donovan back at the Yard.

"It's a long shot, still it's more of shot then we've had." John rubbed his hand through his hair, acutely aware in the last week he had gained more grey hairs than his entire time in Afghanistan.

"And it will take time. I'll pull Dimmock onto it as well." Lestrade agreed.

"In the meantime Mycroft, we need to plan for what will happen when we get him back." John's voice was soft now, and thoughtful as he closed his eyes.

"He'll need medical attention." Mycroft concluded.

"Yes, dependent on his wounds he may need professional care."

"His mental state might preclude his re admittance to a facility. You do realise we have a fully functioning emergency room here?"

"I had thought as much, has Sherlock seen it before? Would he recognise it?" John's voice began to tremble at the thought of what they might find.

"Probably not, but it is close enough to the rest of the house that he can be treated here. You are more than qualified to deal with any medical emergency John."

"Thank you, it's been awhile. I'll ah need a couple of nurses."

"Done." Mycroft stood and took John by the elbow, a rare touch as he steered him away from the rest of the room, to a private corner. "No doubt you'll need to see the facilities, and we have a particularly good psychiatrist on staff should you think we need him. But I must ask you John."

"Um..What?" Watson's discomfort evident.

"Your concern for Sherlock goes well beyond mere friendship John, one could be forgiven for thinking you are closer than I had previously imagined, is this possible?"

"There is no happy announcement, if that's what you mean."John frowned aware that Mycroft could easily read the confusion on his face.

"I see, you know that Sherlock has eschewed all forms of emotional connection, but you seem somehow to have breached that carefully constructed wall he has erected between himself and the rest of the us."

"He cares Mycroft, Sherlock has always cared, he just never understood the need to show that to people; if it doesn't help them, doesn't save them, it has no real importance to him. But I do know that when he gets called Freak by people who know him, who should value him, it hurts."

"You'll be the making of my brother John, don't give up on him." Mycroft smiled softly, and John was taken aback by it, normally so stoic, so austere to be almost painful to be in his presence, where the younger Holmes was concerned Mycroft's heart was in fact worn perilously close to his sleeve.

~~~)))(((~~~

Angelo donned the white hat and uniform as he trudged his way behind Ash into the hospital kitchen, she made a show as she bossed him around for a little while and then pulled his arm.

"Time to collect the lunch dishes, you might as well learn now." And she was off, cart in front of her as she went directly to the wing Sherlock was in. "You and Joe forgot one thing." She hissed under her breath.

"What?" Angelo kept his head down and followed meekly behind her.

"Psycho bitch from hell." She nodded to the woman who left the room at the furthest end of the hallway, and Angelo felt relieved to know it was the closest room to the emergency door on the ground floor.

"Got it covered, Mix has been her cyber stalker since this morning, every hour she goes outside for a smoke, on the dot. Once we know what's what got someone outside to take care of the bitch." Angelo smiled and it was not pretty, Ash sighed, she really had liked this job.

"So how long have we got?"

"Best guess ten minutes. Keep me covered ok?" Ash parked the food cart across the door to Sherlock's room and busied herself as she sorted the contents and Angelo crept inside.

The ex house breaker didn't consider himself easily shocked, he'd done time, not pretty but survivable, and he'd seen some real sicko's on the streets, what they did to the girls for fun, he shuddered. What he saw before him had him gag on the bile that rose from the pit of his stomach.

Always so self assured, in control and brilliant with a feral intensity that stunned many, Sherlock Holmes lay before him. Staked out on the bed like a satanic sacrifice, his feet covered in blood which was dry and had stuck to the sheets, dark circles around the normally expressive eyes, chin covered in dark stubble and totally naked. Wicked bruises festooned the pale skin and he was cold to the touch as Angelo reached out to the prone man.

Multiple sites for easy access for them to inject their poison into his pale grey body, the skin parchment like against the fine musculature, and the tears streamed down his face unchecked.

"Sherlock." Angelo whispered urgently, the dark hair lank and limp fell across the high brow as he rested his hand on his exposed flesh. "Sherlock?"

Pale eyes opened and a whimper was torn from his throat. "Shhhh, please can you hear me?" Sherlock looked confused and scowled. "Please Sherlock just nod if you can hear me." After a few painstaking moments the nod came, barely perceptible. "Ok, good good. You're in no condition to help me get you out of here, so you have to hold tight just for a little while longer yeah? I've gotta get help." Tears ran down the detectives face as he pleaded with his eyes. "Honest Sherlock, I wouldn't lie to you but you gotta be brave just a little while longer, can you do that?" again the slight nod of the head.

Angelo passed a gentle hand across the high forehead and whispered softly. "I will get you out of here, you have my word Sherlock."

Ash's face appeared in the doorway and he hurried to leave, behind him was a sound he never thought he'd hear, a primal sob that was so small, so bereft like a little boy, tore his heart and he steeled himself to leave.

~~~)))(((~~~

"Joe, no chance of getting him to help, he's, well, its," Angelo stopped and steadied himself as he paced with the mobile firmly attached to his ear, "brutal, Christ. I need more help we gotta rethink this a bit."

Silence before Joe's soft calm tones came down the phone line. "Mix got me some more footage, I thought as much. Ok, we take the guards out, though she only brings them in with her after six of a night, so that gives us a window of three hours. I've got a security uniform borrowed from a friend I'll come in and give you back up, Carmine will deliver in forty minutes, help him unload into the kitchen, he'll drive to the side, Mix will take out the camera's across the board that way they won't know where the action is. McKay's missus will arrive in seventy minutes and start a ruckus. And I've got Porter organised to keep the bitch on heels occupied on her smoke break. Ok."

"You'll need bolt cutters to get the restraints off him quickly, a wheel chair and a blanket."

"Done. Angelo, it won't be long, have a coffee yeah and hold it together." Joe was calm and like Valium down the phone line Angelo felt the fear and anxiety leech from him.

"Good."

~~~)))(((~~~

If the hospital gained a few more staff members than it had before lunch that day, no one appeared any the wiser. An extra man here, another woman milling with the patients in the smoking garden, new security guard who sauntered in with just enough swagger that people didn't question his right to be there, the only thing they had in common was the man held captive in a room too close and yet so far away. And they all watched their watches, ready to do what needs must.


	10. Chapter 10

What the homeless group lacked in stealth and finesse they made up for with sheer tenacity. All parts had been covered, as the minutes ticked down Joe watched and waited and flicked open his mobile. Curious, no one seemed to notice the expensive kit on a man who was down and out, supposedly living on the mean streets of London. He sent a simple text, "Be ready." And thumbed the send button.

Across London the message was received and the man grinned, his predatory gaze flickered between relief and annoyance. He folded his long legs in front of him and went back to the Times.

~~~)))(((~~~

Carmine lugged the cryo-vacced bags of cold cuts into the kitchen and scowled.

"You got a full order and you can't give me a hand?" he barked, the Italian clearly not used to doing his own heavy lifting.

Angelo stifled a smile; his gut was curiously fluttering at the importance of this particular order. "I'll give you a hand." He followed the man outside and helped with the final part of the delivery. The back of the refrigerated truck normal for all intents and purposes but at the very back behind the boxes was a makeshift stretcher secured down with luggage straps and a several blankets, most of which looked new.

"You ready?" Carmine patted the larger man's shoulder.

"Fuck, I just want to get this over and done with the suspense is killing me." Angelo wiped a tired hand across his eyes.

"Done." Ash ticked off the order on the sheet and signed the delivery note, before she whispered "Follow the driveway around to the left, the door is marked with a piece of orange tape. Stop and fix the load, OK?"

"Sure." Carmine was off.

"Angelo." Ashley bellowed. "Take the orderlies trays up the staff room."

Angelo smiled he was on, only 2 trays both dosed as he trundled them out on the cart and handed them off to Billy who was waiting inside to deliver the meals. Angelo turned on his heel in the opposite direction and met Joe, he looked up, the security camera lights went out and the lights to the main area flickered. At the same time frantic voices came over the two way clipped to Joe's belt.

~~~)))(((~~~

Paula McKay had long ago given up on an acting career, she was mid thirties and whilst extremely well endowed and truly beautiful, she was happy with her lot. A great husband, two kids both of whom she would swing because of or for depending on which way the wind blew each day.

She climbed out of the late model Austin and smoothed down her designer skirt, threw her bag over her shoulder and entered the smart reception.

"I want to see the Manager." Her soft voice was laced with just enough authority that the woman behind the counter looked up immediately.

"May I ask..." she began in a syrupy sweet voice before Paula stopped her with a well manicured hand.

"No you most definitely may not! I will see the Manager now." Her voice grew louder with each breath.

The startled receptionist just nodded as she reached for the phone. Paula nearly smirked when she saw her hand inch toward the hidden button for the alarm. So far so good. She made a show as she opened her handbag and pulled out a sheath of official information, and gave the receptionist an opportunity to view what she assumed was a firearm in his purse. The poor woman went white and Paula spared her no care, after all as far as she was concerned she was partly responsible for Mr H's problem.

Security began to arrive as the woman pressed the button again and again, clearly panicked.

~~~)))(((~~~

Billy delivered the trays of food for the 2 night orderlies in the Staff Room, within minutes of their chicken casserole they were sleeping soundly on the top of the table.

~~~)))(((~~~

Doctor Arabella Winston looked down at her French polish and tutted, there was blood under her nails and that just wouldn't do, she'd have to go all the way to her favourite manicurist in the city and have them redone. Never mind, her pet wasn't going anywhere and maybe she could pick him up a treat, she knew some of the loveliest drug dealers in London.

She giggled as she pulled out her cigarette and took a long deep breath as she watched the patients wander around her in the small courtyard.

Most looked sane, well why wouldn't they? She'd had no difficulty in getting past the recruitment criteria of the facility and she had had her moments. The marked difference was she knew she wasn't normal, brilliant, a genius, though a truly warped one, it was so easy to run rings around the mass of humanity that seethed in the real world.

Ruth Porter wobbled up to the Doctor in her white coat and squinted as she read the name tag and began to laugh.

"What's funny?" Arabella asked in her toffy singsong voice and Ruth laughed again.

"Got a light?" she held up a smoke and Arabella eyed her with apathy as she lit the cigarette. Ruth continued to laugh.

"Are you going to let me in on the joke?" The woman annoyed her.

"Just you're a doctor having a fag, thought these things were meant to kill you."

Arabella's eyes crinkled in amusement. "Ah well, something has to I guess." She nodded just a Ruth touched her on the arm, an intimate almost friendly gesture that hid the hypodermic in the other hand. Arabella Winston hit the ground and convulsed as Ruth walked away.

It took more than five minutes for the other patients to realise or care that she was down, partially hidden by a rubbish bin, either too medicated or too hostile to call for help. One of the staff finally noticed and hit the emergency call button.

~~~)))(((~~~

Joe pushed the wheel chair laden with blankets and pillows into Room 613 followed by Angelo in his newly acquired orderly's uniform.

They went straight in and Joe paused, horrified by the state of Sherlock and then continued, he undid the leg straps in silence as Sherlock tracked his movements. The detective was aware only of the uniforms and felt the dread that coursed through his battered and bruised body.

Angelo let the side down and gave him a quick once over, all the IV lines had been capped off, luckily, as Joe covered him quickly with a blanket. He saw the panic in the normally expressive pale eyes Angelo leaned in close.

"Time to go home Sherlock." He said quietly as he passed a worried hand over the ice cold forehead and found that it came away soaking wet.

"Home?" The voice that issued was so scared and broken, thin and rasping that Joe had to fight the urge to kill the bitch outside with his bare hands.

Angelo arranged the long limbs to his satisfaction and waited in silence for Joe to position the chair next to the bed, with one swift move he lifted the prone surprisingly light body in his arms and swiftly put him in the chair. A pillow across his lap and another blanket draped over the naked shoulders before he was pushed towards the door. Joe spared a glance at the CCTV camera, the lights were still off, and back to his watch, they stopped, heavy feet pounded outside the door and in an instant he drew a firearm Angelo didn't know he was carried. With practised movements he readied the pistol. Sherlock's eyes went wide, some part of his intellect caught up with the movements, he was being rescued, and he felt a tiny flutter of hope in his chest.

The footsteps passed and after a moment that seemed suspended in molasses they moved forward at a fair clip, down the corridor the opposite direction the feet had gone in, out the emergency exit and up a ramp into a dark and foul smelling truck. The rear doors slammed shut as the truck lurched forward before either man could secure their charge.

A rare smile bent the Detectives lips as he looked up at his rescuers before the pain exploded in his chest and he slumped in the chair. He couldn't breathe, couldn't dare hope and the world suddenly went from shades of red to black.

Horrified Joe laid him gently on the stretcher and felt for the pulse. This was not right, not right at all and he looked up, worry evident in his features. Quickly he snapped on the oxygen mask that appeared from nowhere, as Angelo hung on for dear life as the truck swerved and bucked on the road. Joe turned Sherlock onto his side, opened his phone and hit speed dial with his thumb.

"Yes?" the plummy voice echoed over the roar of the truck engine.

"Sir, we have him."

A beat, and then a single relieved sigh on the other end. "Well done."

"He's unconscious, pulse is thready, and I've administered oxygen. I need permission to bring him directly to you sir, the safe house isn't equipped."

"ETA?"

"Twenty minutes."

"Very well, use the side entrance; I'll have the doctor waiting."


	11. Chapter 11

_A/N: Ok so now we get to the comfort, but it's not going to be easy...*VWEG* thank you so much for everyone who is reading, the bunny eats...well at the moment. :) FYI I'm off overseas on Wed for a 3 week break but I will be taking the laptop and I will be updating...in between vodka shots...happy holidays to all!_

"Ah, there you are John." The doctor looked at Mycroft as John handed his scarf to the butler and scowled.

"Phone." Watson indicated with his hand. "I do have a phone, you know, you could just ring like a normal person. You could have called me, on the phone."

Mycroft inclined his head. "Yes I know, and I'm sorry to take advantage of your good graces so often. You might like to know however, that Sherlock is on his way here, and from all accounts he will need you."

John stumbled against the wall, all the fear and adrenaline now leeched from his body until the portent of the words sunk into his tired brain. "How," the stammer was back and Mycroft watched the intense expression of the younger man. "How badly is he hurt?" Those liquid amber eyes looked up at the elder Holmes with such a wealth of expression Mycroft was forced to look away.

"I don't know."Mycroft answered sadly. "ETA is twelve minutes." He looked down at his watch and helped the Doctor to stand.

Watson set off down the long hallway at a dead run and skidded around a corner into the emergency room.

~~~)))(((~~~

The truck with its airbrushed "Carmines Fine Charcutterie" on the side sped around the corner, heedless of its payload; the only thing that mattered now was to make the delivery on time. Carmine swore loudly at the GPS, as it recalibrated his route again.

Finally the imposing white structure loomed before him and he raced through to the gates, which opened as if by magic and headed down the white gravel driveway until he reached the servants entrance. He slammed on the brake and was out the door and pulled the back open just as the household security came to assist.

As light streamed in through the back of the van, Carmine fell away when he heard the cry. Deep, wounded and terrified. He looked as his hands as Doctor John winced and steeled himself as he entered into the gloom.

~~~)))(((~~~

White coat, Farm security, the only things that filtered into his brain and Sherlock screamed, he couldn't go back, wouldn't go back as he fought the hands that attempted to hold him down. The voices terrified him; they were so loud and angry. Tears stained his face as he pulled away and backed himself into the corner, stark naked as he clutched at the thin cotton blanket and cowered.

And that's how John found him, knees drawn to his chest, large pale eyes that stared and cried and the wounded sob that echoed in the dark van cut into his heart like a laser.

It was hard to tell how badly hurt he was, dirty for certain, and blood caked his feet, his shins, and leaked down his arms. His hair was dank and limp and all traces of the self controlled manic genius were gone as the cry went up again as Angelo and Joe tried in vain to get him out of the van. All of this happened in a split second and John drew himself up to his full height.

"Let him go." He ordered and Angelo and Joe fell back. "Uniforms, he doesn't see you, just, just the uniforms." Sherlock crouched further back the cold metal against bare flesh as he looked up at the new voice.

Mycroft breezed past John and knelt at his brother's side, Sherlock's eyes were large, the pupils blown as he shied away from the outstretched hand.

"Midge?" the voice was soft and gentle; John was stunned he would never have believed that Mycroft was capable of such love.

Sherlock stilled and watched as the hand reached forward again to lie against his face. "Midge?" Mycroft called softer this time as the tears leaked from under bruised lids as Sherlock slid his eyes shut.

"Safe?" the word was croaked from the parched throat as he nuzzled his face against the warm palm.

"Safe now Midge. Safe." Mycroft crooned softly.

"John." Sherlock sounded lost and confused. "Want John." He opened his eyes and bit his lip. "Please, brother mine, want John." Mycroft turned his head towards John who had finally managed to move his feet and crouched down next to his beleaguered friend.

"Shhhh, Sherlock, I'm here." John ran his hand through the matted hair and smiled gently.

Sherlock looked between the two men and bit his lip again, as he held out his arms. "Please, it hurts." He begged again and John's eyes became unreadable as he saw the damage to the pale limbs. The wrists bruised and cut from cuffs that had held him captive, the canula's though capped were swollen and leaked dark blood down his arms, his fingers were shredded from trying to escape and John wept. He wrapped a cotton blanket around the shivering form and pulled him close to his chest as he spoke softly.

"He can't walk Mycroft, look at his feet." And horror dawned on the aristocratic features as he looked on the bloodied limbs.

Angelo, forgotten by the men pushed the wheelchair towards them and stepped away, aware his presence in the white orderly's uniform spooked the man they had come so far to rescue.

"Can you lift him?" Mycroft asked softly, his hand still against the pale face as Sherlock heaved a deep sigh.

"Yes." John's voice was flat, emotionless as by sheer force of will he stood and lifted Sherlock into the wheelchair, tucked a blanket around his friend and scooted down in front of him again. Warm palms turned his face to look directly into the worried eyes.

"Sherlock?" The detective tilted his head to one side as he fidgeted in the seat. "Sherlock, look at me." The voice was soft but compelled the man to look at his friend; his fingers began to tug on the offending needles in his arms as John wrapped his hand around the long fingers and stilled the movements. Finally Sherlock sighed dramatically as he returned the gaze. "Trust me?"

Sherlock nodded once.

"Good, Sherlock I'm going to take care of you ok?" Sherlock nodded again but the sobs were far from over as he slumped.

"It hurts." Sherlock said again in that voice that cut into John's heart. Watson's eyes betrayed him as he looked up at Mycroft who was stood ready to push the chair down the ramp. In that moment both men knew that the pieces had finally clicked together. John Watson late of Afghanistan loved the difficult man, and not heaven and certainly not hell would keep him from his charge. Tears streaked his face as he kissed the high forehead and stook up, Sherlock's fingers found his own and he looked up. All the faith and love in that gaze was almost his undoing when he saw the blood blossom against the white cotton blanket on Sherlock's lap and he snapped out of the moment.

He was away from the stink of truck and shouted orders to the nurses. Sherlock heard snatched conversations, crash cart, antiseptic, gauze, and pillows, saline. He closed his eyes as they lifted him onto the warmed bed and covered him again with another blanket as John set to work, he went straight to the source of the blood on Sherlock's lap and removed the canula from his groin that had come away, the skin tender and bruised as he applied pressure and saw the weeping infection that was left on the dressing. He pressed harder and Sherlock grunted, but his eyes had become calmer as he watched his friend work.

The next ones in his arms were removed and each one was bagged into a zip lock bag and labelled by the nurse that stood at the Doctors left. Blood pressure cuff attached, oxygen clip on his finger, a cold stethoscope was pressed against his frigid flesh and John frowned again. Each tiny movement that caused him pain or despair was soothed with gentle words from the Doctor, a continued litany that kept them both grounded and Sherlock could no longer stop the tears that coursed down his face as John began to clean his feet. He hissed in pain as the antiseptic touched the raw wounds and John again spoke to reassure his friend.

It took over an hour to anoint each wound, to bag the information and to draw blood for the tox screen, to shine the torch into his eyes, to question constantly about where he was, did he know what happened, what was his name, his favourite music, and for once he wasn't annoyed by the constant chatter. He watched as John inserted the thin needle with aesthetic into his arm and felt a small sting.

"I know, I'm sorry, Sherlock, I need to put an IV line into you." Sherlock whimpered and John fought his own control. "You said you trusted me."

Sherlock nodded again. "I do."

"Good because I need to dilute whatever muck they put into you and you've got infections Sherlock. You need IV antibiotics."

"Ok." Sherlock closed his eyes and began to tremble. John spoke to the large figure that loomed over his shoulder.

"Mycroft, hold his hand he's scared." John ordered and Lestrade who had joined the group silently again marvelled that the arrogant statesman would do as he was told without hesitation.

Long fingers wrapped around bruised ones and Mycroft perched on the edge of the bed. "You had me worried Midge." Mycroft drew his brother's attention away from the needle John inserted, he struck the vein first time and positioned the adhesive over the plastic, the nurse hooked up the IV bag of saline and he checked the tray with the antibiotics before he administered them himself along with a small dose of valium. Almost at once Sherlock sagged in the bed and John sighed.

After a moment the long hand reached out to John's face and wiped at the tears that still flowed freely. "Are these for me?" Sherlock asked softly.

"Probably."

"Why?" Sherlock looked puzzled before a small smile crept onto his face as he looked at John again.

John shrugged. "Stress, adrenaline, worry." John shrugged again. "It's even made Mycroft human you know? There's valium in the IV feed along with antibiotics. I'm sorry I can't give you anything stronger until I know what they used on you."

"LSD." Sherlock murmured, warm and secure one hand wrapped around his brothers, the other tangled in the wool of John's jumper.

"Great, anything else?" John stroked the high forehead.

"Cold."

"Mmm yes I know, the IV line is going through a warm water bath, it will help."

"Don't," and the shy hesitancy was back in Sherlock's voice and Lestrade fought the urge to kill the bitch that had harmed this brilliant man.

"Don't what love?" John caught himself on the endearment and realised he didn't care.

"Just don't leave." And with that Sherlock was out for the count, as John put the oxygen mask over his face.

Watson sighed heavily, as another blanket was added to the first and he took the opportunity to turn Sherlock onto his side and push pillows between the pale back and the cold railing that had been clicked into place.

He frowned again when he saw bruises festooning the pale flesh, pressure sores, he thought but then there were the other ones, finger shaped over his hips and Watson's voice shook as he looked up at the nurse.

"Get me a rape kit." He said softly.


	12. Chapter 12

_A/N: I'm not sure when I will update next, probably Friday I think, but I fly out tomorrow. This could end up being a story Arc, I'm not sure. :) Take care of you._

_"One man in a thousand, Solomon says, _

_Will stand more close than your brother,_

_But the thousandth man will stand by your side,_

_To the Gallows foot and after."_

_Kipling._

_"John?" _Mycroft's face revealed nothing, Lestrade however took a step towards the hospital bed.

He held the blanket away from Sherlock's back and pointed to the finger marks that left little to the imagination, an eerie calm came over Mycroft.

"I don't have a choice; I can't ignore the evidence Mycroft."

"No, I know you can't." Mycroft sighed as he retook his perch next to his brother and ran his hand tenderly through the dark curls. Sherlock stirred in his sleep and made a small contented sound at the back of his throat, but didn't wake.

"I've, ah sent the needles to be analysed it should tell me what drugs were used and perhaps even the frequency, however blood work will do that as well. At this point in time," John opened the package and laid out the collection items and swiftly took the samples required. He labelled each with his details and handed the bag to Lestrade.

"Would it go to court?" Lestrade looked despondently at the bag in his hands.

"No I'm afraid not." Mycroft intoned. "I'll not have him dragged through the courts to relive it all again if it did in fact happen, no offence John."

"None taken, I'd much rather a negative result." He said in a hushed tone. "He will sleep for a few hours, we'll know more then."

"Gentlemen." Lestrade ran a hand through his short greying hair. "We need to talk and now seems as good a time as any."

John grunted and Mycroft got up reluctant to leave the sleeping man. John ushered them through to a small utilitarian room just off the ward proper with a couple of lounges and desk.

"What's the prognosis John?" Lestrade asked as he paced slowly around the room.

"There were a total of six intravenous injection points on his body, two in each arm, one in his leg and another in his groin. All of which are infected, hospitals are nasty places and he's been treated without care. The wound on his groin is the most pronounced given its tender location. He is lucid but extremely agitated, core temperature is down which indicates he's been left possibly naked and uncovered for a long period of time. He is dehydrated and there is a rattle on his chest which could indicate pneumonia. There are some pressure sores on his back, renal function will be monitored and there are severe lacerations to the base of each foot, cut with something sharp like a scalpel." John drew breath and forced himself to stay in doctor mode until he could take the evidence out to examine in the privacy of his own pain. "Blood tests should also confirm that he hasn't eaten in the last week, and has lost several pounds. He is extremely emotional, which is only partially due to the drugs in his system and he is exhausted. His blood pressure is all over the place as well. So we wait, he needs to sleep, and I need the test results to arrange a more considered treatment course."

"Apart from the bruises is there any other evidence that he'd been raped." Mycroft asked his voice flat with anger.

"No there was no tearing or rupturing I'd expect to see in a rape victim, nor was there an evidence of semen. There is extensive bruising to his genitals and his body but that could have been caused by being manhandled or threatened."

"So you're not expecting the kit to come back positive?" Lestrade sounded relieved despite the appalling list of injuries.

"In Afghanistan the Taliban used various torture techniques, one of which was a psychological rape; for all intents and purposes the victim would believe that the act had occurred despite it not being a physical attack. They used a chemical cocktail on the victim to confuse them and make them susceptible to the suggestion. So in answer to the question, no I don't expect the kit to come back positive, I'm not certain however that in Sherlock's mind it didn't happen, if you follow."

Mycroft angled his head to one side and looked at the doctor. "And his mental state?"

"At this stage confused, emotional and desperately seeking comfort which would be highly disturbing for a sociopath, however Mycroft we have had that particular conversation before."

"Yes, yes I know your theory. However, it is about how one view themself, so again it's a matter of perspective."

"Wait." Lestrade put his hand up. "Are you telling me that Sherlock is not a highly functioning sociopath?"

"I don't think he is, no." Mycroft spoke and startled John.

"Nor is it my medical opinion, such as it's worth. But as his friend, and having been in the company of both sociopaths and psychopaths Sherlock doesn't fit the psych profile."

"So his self analysis is..?" Lestrade looked between the men.

"Bullshit." John answered for Mycroft.

"Ok, so if he says he is and has adopted the attitude then the attack will affect him as though he was, and if he doesn't truly believe he is then the attack will affect him the same anyway? Could this get any less complicated?" Lestrade huffed.

"If it's any help, Sherlock said they used LSD, which is not considered to be an addictive drug mainly because it doesn't produce compulsive drug seeking behaviour such as cocaine, amphetamines or heroin. So if there is good news that would be it. It also means he won't need to be weaned off the drug."

"Guess we should be grateful for that. Now would somebody like to tell me what's going on with Sherlock's band of merry men?" Lestrade asked.

"Ah, that would be partly my fault I'm afraid." Mycroft smiled that feral grin that made people want to run.

"And mine. I involved some of Sherlock's sources to see if they could find him. I assume that Big Joe is in your employ Mycroft?"

He nodded with a smile. "Very good John, but how did you know?"

"His phone."

"Ah."

"His what? You know never mind. So Joe works for you and you used the homeless network to find Sherlock when we couldn't. And they are responsible for all the emergency calls going off at Chase Farm I assume."

"Bloody hell, that's less than an hour from here." John snarled.

"We didn't know John." Mycroft was quick to soothe.

"And the woman?"

"Ah yes her name is Arabella Winston, formerly Arabella Moriarty. She was a brilliant medical student but was clearly insane. Along with her brother James she was admitted to care from the age of seventeen on a regular basis. James left Switzerland and came to the UK; Arabella married her psychiatrist and moved here within the year. It appears that the Scottish Police have an open file on Doctor Winston death."

"Wonderful. Where is she now?"

"She's in a critical but stable condition at Chase. I intend for her to be removed soon. In the meantime Joe is organising the reward to be paid to the network and will come to see you in the morning Detective Inspector to give his statement."

The room fell to silence as each man was lost in his own thoughts. "He was crying." Lestrade finally said unable to look up from the important study of his hands.

"Yep."

"I've known him for five years maybe a bit more, and I've never seen him cry like that."

"Drugs." Mycroft said softly.

"No, I've seen him on drugs; you know I have, not like that though. Sherlock doesn't do scared."

"Nope." John agreed.

"And yet he obviously was." Mycroft concluded. "We will get him through it Geoff."

"I don't doubt it. But Midge?" Lestrade smiled, of all the things to pick up on, it would be the pet name, which if he knew Sherlock he would hate it for anyone to know.

"As in small fly." Mycroft smiled and stood up in one easy graceful movement.

"And love?" Lestrade fixed John with a stare.

"As in I love him." John answered, then nodded his head to see how it felt on his tongue and looked up. "Problem?"

"No." Lestrade smiled and then remembered the bag in his hand.

"Leave that with the ward sister, we can have it checked here." Mycroft's voice sounded distant as he left the room. "John I'll have the kitchen prepare a tray for you, in the meantime I have some urgent business to attend." Mycroft looked down at his PDA and started to send a text.

~~~)))(((~~~

True to his word Mycroft had organised a pot of perfectly brewed tea, a plate of sandwiches and a large recliner with extra pillows and blankets. World weary he looked down on the pale features of his friend.

The beard had to go; he decided it made his head look too big. His eyes, bruised from sleep deprivation flickered under the thin lids, in REM sleep. John pulled the lounge close to the side of the bed and dropped the guard rail in front of Sherlock. He completed the obs himself and settled down with his cup of tea to wait.

Sometime around three am Sherlock began to thrash and cry, John spoke to him softly and the expressive eyes flicked open.

"John?" confusion still evident in his voice.

"Safe now." John answered quietly as he took the long hand in his own and rubbed soothing circles over the palm.

"Please, please." Sherlock moaned and went back to sleep.

Too tired to cry John spent the rest of the early morning, just holding onto that long fingered hand and whispered softly to his friend. And he refused to cry.

At four am his phone alerted him to a text. He peered at the screen in the dim light and frowned, an unlisted number.

**_Is he alright, my dear? M_**

And John swore.


	13. Chapter 13

_A/N: Thanks for the patience - I'm attempting to reconcile a few things from the show - Mycroft when he takes Johns hand in his own from Study in Pink, clearly shows a wedding ring, so I'm addressing the marriage Raven style. As for the fued - my mind doesnt allow me to think it anything political or controversial, but more an emotional problem and a lack of trust that perhaps was the issue - I know it's not cannon but I'm adding my own back story for the sake of the fic. At the moment we are in Bangkok heading in a few days to Burma so I dont know if I can access the net there, but I will do my level best! Thanks again, onward and well - onward..._

"I dreamed a dream." The softly slurred words echoed up from the hospital bed, like a benediction or prayer and instantly John was by his side.

"What did you dream?" There were of course a myriad things he could have said, but it seemed important to fall into the conversation with both feet, the mundane questions all the rest, well that would come later, in that moment John chose to just breath in the sound he thought he'd lost. The voice of the one man who wanted nothing from him; but who needed him for everything, and then Sherlock's head turned the small upturned smile that touched the corner of his mobile mouth and a frown.

"That you were real." There was defeat in that voice, agony too that went unsaid and pain that flashed in the pale eyes as John leaned forward, there was no hesitation, not anymore, this man could have anything he asked even if he chose nothing at all, but whatever it was within his power John Watson would give it to him because it was his to give.

John's warm lips touched cool skin, the large hand stroked the side of Sherlock's battered face as he whispered, "I am real Sherlock, and you're safe now."

"No, no I'm never truly safe." Sherlock blinked twice and seemed to regain some control he smiled up at the man leant across him and his own hand, free of the hated restraint clutched in the woollen jumper his long fingers tangled in the grey wool.

"Well as safe as you can be. But I am real."

"Must say, as far as hallucinations go, this is one of the much better ones." Sherlock smiled and he would have fooled most, except for the too bright eyes that closed slowly.

"Talk to me." John said softly.

"Why? What's the point? You're dead." Sherlock's voice was bleak, full of remorse and remembered pain that panicked John, who didn't know what to do to make the man believe. If he let it go, allowed him the "time" that everyone would say he needed, knew there was a strong probability that Sherlock would forever be locked in that brilliant mind and may never find his way out.

"I'm not dead." John climbed onto the bed with his friend and pulled the fragile form toward him, as he pushed his head down to his chest against his heart and Sherlock trembled in that delicate embrace. "I'm not dead, you saw me when they took you! I was at the back of the ambulance, screaming for you remember?"

Sherlock trembled again and nodded once, his fingers dug into the wool and beneath to touch hot skin, and just as abruptly as he started, he stopped, his fingertips barely skimmed the flesh above John's hip.

"It's okay." John pulled his face up between his palms as he kissed the high forehead again. "Take whatever you need."

Never one to have to be asked twice, Sherlock pushed jumper and shirt up in one swift move and laid his head against John's bare chest, ear pressed firmly against the heart that beat solidly. Watson felt the tears but remained silent, and gave him the solace he needed in the protective embrace of his arms and all the while accepted whatever Sherlock needed to bring him back to the real world.

Long fingers found wrists and probed for a pulse, and up against his face to feel the breath and Sherlock smiled before he buried his face back down onto Johns shoulder and held fast.

"Oh God." He moaned softly. "It's really over?"

"Yes, home and safe." Sherlock raised his head again and finally saw the room.

"Not unless you've redecorated Baker Street in hospital chic."

"Ok then, we are at the Manor, in the emergency response room."

"Mycroft." He sighed.

"Do you remember what happened?" John slid sideways from the bed and sat up.

"Most, some."

"Sherlock." John's voice was unaccountably soft as he looked at the confused face, and down to the hand still buried within the wool. "I have to ask, before your brother or Geoff comes in."

Sherlock nodded.

"There were bruises." And John motioned to Sherlock's hips.

"You did a rape kit."

"Yes."

"And?" Fear laced the voice as he looked away, shame burning in his face.

"I'm still waiting for the results. Sherlock did they sexually assault you?"

Tears again this time Sherlock wiped them away and looked down at his fingers before he wiped them back on the bed clothes.

"A lot of groping, threats, but no."

John pulled the stubborn face back to his. "So they did assault you."

"They didn't rape me." Sherlock's voice trembled.

"But they said they would." John moved closer and the detective rested his head on the offered shoulder.

"They said a lot of things."

"She made you think I was dead."

"Lots of things John. Too many to think about, too much feeling to deal with. It's like overload." He fisted his dark curls in both his hands and pulled.

"Stop that." He gently pulled the long fingers from the hair. "It's nothing we can't deal with."

"That's just it, I don't deal with it, and it was real. Too much was real."

"Too much of what she said?"

"Yes, her perspective was amazingly accurate of how people deal with me, and I moved through them without fear because they couldn't touch me, they didn't matter, only the game."

"But we both know that's a lie and always has been."

Sherlock shuddered again. "Tired." He said softly, as if all the brilliance of his mind shut down to single basic needs and hid.

"You will not leave me Sherlock do you understand."

"'mm here."

"Your body is I need your mind as well. Present Sherlock, you must remain present."

"Because?" he lifted his head as if it were a weight beyond his measure, bright eyes searched for a truth that seemed just out of reach.

"Because if you hide, if they scare you into submission, they will have won." John was gentle with his choice of words but the conviction behind them was very real.

The detective began to pick at the tape that held the IV in place and again John stopped the agitated fingers with his hand. For a surgeon John had the hands of a labourer, rough and calloused from long period of time holding a gun or scalpel, oddly comforting in the innate ability to grant solace from the madness that swirled in his head.

"The IV stays in." John felt the head drop back onto his chest. "Did they, feed you?"

Sherlock shook his head in negation. "They would put food down, and when I ate it they would take me into the bathroom and stick their fingers down my throat or ipecac to make me vomit. Even when they left the food, I would just leave it."

"And they left you naked in a cold room?"

Again a tight nod against his chest, "I was being punished."

"What for?"

"Her brother's death, but only partly that, mostly because I wouldn't submit."

"Submit to what?" John frowned.

"I don't know, honestly I don't think she new. I was to be a gift to her father to replace the loss of James."

"She had a long history of mental illness."

"How did you find me?"

"Your homeless network."

"Ah." Sherlock answered as if it made all the sense in the world.

"Look, you're tired, you need to sleep, I need to change the dressings on your feet and groin. And then we need you to eat."

Sherlock nodded. "I never said John, and before this I never would, but," he drew a deep breath to steady the erratic beat of his heart, "thank you."

"I should have found you days ago Sherlock and for that I am sorry."

"I'm surprised you found me at all."

John smiled.

~~~~)))(((~~~~

"How is he?" Mycroft stood by the door as he watched John redress the wounds and tuck the blankets around the sleeping man.

"Confused."

"Ah."

"Mycroft, it's time we had a talk."

"About? I'm rather busy at the moment John, Sherlock has taken up quite a lot of my time and I'm behind schedule."

"Now Mycroft." John squared his shoulders and looked the aristocrat up and down, anger began to colour his tawny eyes.

"As you wish." And again they were back in that small room, just off the ward proper. "So now you have me, what precisely do you want to know?"

"Sherlock was assaulted but not raped, he was lucid about that."

The elder Holmes sagged in his seat and ran the palms of his hands down the front of the Saville Row suit pants.

"There is animosity that cannot be missed even by an idiot like me, between the two of you. I need to know why."

"Surely Sherlock has told you."

"Don't," John scowled, "Just don't. Tell me."

"Oh very well. Sherlock was sixteen and though brilliant was a decidedly odd child, I adored him, and I still do and worry for him constantly. Daddy was concerned as well, there had been a string of problems at school and finally they called the family in to discuss it."

"What, what had he done?" John licked his lips as he regarded the man before him.

"He was often called freak and other such names, he had no friends to speak of, and finally they pushed him too far, he came home bloody and bruised, but the weight of numbers were against him, the other boys decided he was at fault and concocted a story to the head. Daddy was furious and went directly to the board at Harrow, reminded them of our family's generosity over the years, and sent him back to school within a few weeks, certainly much sooner than he should have done, but that was the way he was. Sherlock exacted his revenge on the boys. He never laid a hand on them, but he used his considerable intellect to utterly destroy them."

"And he got into trouble."

"More than you know. The head called the family in again and with the school counsellors they decided that he needed therapy that no sixteen year old child should be as calculating and manipulating as my brother. By now the sociopath persona was fully in place and Sherlock embraced it."

"I thought you said your mother wouldn't allow him to be treated when he was six?"

"Ah yes Mummy, by the time we got home, Daddy and I had decided that perhaps it was time for Sherlock to get help."

"Jesus, Mary and Joseph. You were going to have him committed? No wonder he doesn't trust you!"

"Mummy and Daddy had a row sometime after I went back to Oxford and by the weekend Mummy left Daddy and took Sherlock with her to Paris. They stayed away for nearly a year before Daddy backed down and begged them to come home. My brother lost his family and his innocence in one day because we believed, just like the others did, that he was a freak."

"Have you told him? Apologised? Discussed it?"

"You see how hostile he is towards me, he won't listen and I've promised Mummy to keep him safe."

"And he sees it as you trying to control him and bully him now that your father is gone."

"Yes. There were many years John I had my own problems to deal with, as I became more relied upon within my job, time and political differences drew us apart and there we have stayed. The work I do is not conducive to long term relationship success."

"So I can tell from the state of your marriage."

"Indeed."

"You still wear the ring will you reconcile?"

"Ah." Mycroft closed his eyes. "Perhaps, it will depend on her newest friend."

"She lives on the continent?"

"Venice, painting last time we spoke."

"And your mother?"

"Is one of the physicists at CERN."

"You will need to discuss this with him Mycroft."

"I have tried." Johns laugh was cynical.

"I doubt that. You who can manage to keep the Korean's in check cannot convince your little brother you love him? Try...harder." John turned on his heel and walked out the door and back into the ward.


	14. Chapter 14

_A/N: Hello all - ok here is the next bit. I know it probably has syntax errors all over the place, but I will fix the grammar when I get a better connection, we are heading into Burma and may not have internet access at all. We'll see. Hope you enjoy! Thank you to all the lovelies who keep the plot bunny fed and happy. :) You Rock!_

Everything had a consequence; Sherlock had learned that early at his parent's knee. No matter what the motivation, whatever action you took you had to be aware of the consequence of that action. Even if it took fourteen years to come back and bite you on the arse.

But then that was when life made sense, for all his life, he could only ever remember the noise. He'd learned to filter out the more erratic sounds, he ones like love and emotion. He cauterized them from his consciousness as if they were a wound, and as he moved on, he ignored the pain that was left in their absence.

Trust was not a thing he had a great personal understanding of, love even less. Though over the years there had been many who had proclaimed to have loved him, family, the few lovers he'd accumulated who attempted to be more, and when they did like the rest they were cut brutally from his psyche, until the dull ache would grow again and he would once again allow himself to feel.

Now, it was all he could do. Those walls that had been built over years had fallen, thanks in part to Arabella and her drugs, the rest well he simply no longer had the stamina to keep those walls so well guarded. So the noise was back, white hot and painful as it overloaded his brain, words, feelings, desires all flooded the virgin mind and fought for dominance. And it annoyed the crap out of him.

So, it was time to go back to basics, it had always been a favoured approach. Calm and measured he would look at each part of his brain that shouted loudly at him, deal with it, discard it or simply cast it aside, until the order was once again restored.

Right now, it was a matter of trust, and in particular whether or not to believe the words that dripped from that supercilious sanctimonious mouth of his terminally dull brother. It was true, he had never forgiven him for the attempted sectioning when he was a child, never forgave him for taking their fathers side or for helping to break up the only thing he had ever relied on, his family.

Even when Mummy came home, it was not the same, too many late night arguments, and too many silences over breakfast, and the spark that was once there was gone. They merely lived in each other's company, both too proud and too scared to take out the problems and deal with them.

And how he loved her for that.

She never saw him as a freak, she called him gifted and darling and he remembered how she would in her practical no nonsense way let him know that she was there for him. But then Daddy became the enemy and Mycroft the traitor, so he rebelled, he left home as soon as he was able, Daddy had set up the trust fund to be released on his education and there was no doubt he would have access to the money long before it was due to him.

Mycroft railed against that, delivered all sorts of declarations and admonitions. Mummy was resolute in her trust of him, all the way until the day she came to visit and found him with the needle in his arm. Even then he explained that it was just to stop the noise, just for a little while, like anaesthetic. He was her baby and she picked him up and for a while he was a good son. Mycroft couldn't abide it because he knew, that Sherlock had never given up the heroin; he just became so much more careful of its use. And in that he knew his mother also knew.

She was the one who had taught them the science of cold reading; how to draw conclusions based on what you could see and have it make sense. Lightning fast, she was quick and brilliant. Daddy had had his hunting clubs and his politics and his title which one day would filter down to his annoying brother, who he realised, was sat before him, hands folded in his lap with his head cocked to one side as he peered at him.

"Midge, have you been listening?" Mycroft asked after a time and saw the look of panic that skittered across Sherlock's face before he regained his composure.

Sherlock frowned. "Stop that, you lost the right to call me that when you tried to have me committed."

To his utter credit Mycroft winced at the resentment in the tone and scowled. "You didn't answer the question."

"Yes, yes, sorry about the past, no need to be hostile, always worried, blah blah blah, I have heard this speech before Mycroft, it never changes."

"It doesn't need to, when it's the truth."

"So you say, and in light of recent events, as much as it grieves me I have to take your word for it."

"Ah, progress."

"Is it? And what conditions do you impose on me now?"

Mycroft looked genuinely offended. "Only that you take some time to regain your strength and health before you go home. Nothing more."

Sherlock scowled. "Nothing? No more lectures? No more attempted holds on the trust? No more running off and telling on me to Mummy?"

Mycroft sighed. "I give you my word. My only concern has only ever been for you, this petty feud has to stop Sherlock and I am prepared to do whatever it takes to bring it to an end."

"And am I supposed to be grateful? Give you the opportunity to bully me into your dull life, make me your protégé in the absence of providing a son? It would be quiet the scandal if Sophia were to fall pregnant to her Italian lover, I doubt even you could hide that one away." Sherlock's words were poisoned and he saw Mycroft shudder but remain seated, a small part of his brain screamed to back off, that this wasn't him, wasn't the way to behave. The sane reasonable part that wanted the peace of family to know that he was welcomed no matter what.

But the other part, the one he listened to too frequently spat back at him and told him loudly not to listen. It was his brother's fault he was sectioned this time, he set it up with Arabella, this was all Mycroft's doing and he dug his hands into his hair.

"Cruel, though essentially true." Mycroft watched with concern but did nothing, he saw the pain, and understood the depth of treason he was responsible for.

Sherlock pulled his hair and ran his hand across his face. "I'm sorry." He voice small again, almost childlike.

"I know. Midge?" Mycroft sat on the side of the bed and pulled the elegant fingers into his own.

"Yes."

"I'm sorry too. I was wrong because I didn't understand you, and I should have."

Sherlock nodded his head once and closed his eyes.

He remembered every little thing, the cold floor on his feet as he shuffled from the bed painfully into the shower, the warm water instead of cold that took away the chill and fear. He remembered how good it felt with the nurse washed his hair as he sat on the small stool, the comfort of the soft cotton T Shirt as it was pulled onto him, it was a relief to have some of his armour back, and by degrees he felt more like himself again.

Time meant nothing but John appeared shortly after and redressed his wounds, checked the IV with sure and capable hands and pushed his hand through the unruly curls.

"How do you feel?" there was a softness about the eyes and mouth and Sherlock launched forward into that sure embrace as he trembled, unaccountably scared and dazed when the woollen clad arms folded gently around him and rocked slowly.

"I'll take that as better but scared shitless." John continued to rock until Sherlock released his death grip.

"Sorry."

"No, don't apologise, I told you to take whatever you needed, and I meant it. Now, are you ready to eat?"

Sherlock frowned. "I don't know, will I be punished if I don't?"

The thought horrified John but he beat it back into submission as he schooled his features. "No, but the IV can't come out until you eat, I need to keep you on antibiotics and they will play hell with you if you take them without food. I don't know about you, but I think you'd do better in one of the rooms in the house that doesn't look like a ward."

"If I eat I can get rid of this and have a proper bed?" Sherlock pursed his lips.

"Bout the size of it." John agreed. "So will you try to eat?"

Sherlock nodded and lifted his hands to John's inspection and fought to keep them still.

"I'll be back in a minute, ok?"

Sherlock understood his friend suffered as much as he had, understood that there was something that John wanted from him and he didn't know if he would ever be allowed to give it to his dearest friend. He shouted at himself that if he didn't he would get lost in the voices again and this time he didn't think he could fight them alone.

~~~)))(((~~~

"So, how did it go?" John asked as he prepared the scrambled eggs in the kitchen for Sherlock, Mycroft shrugged.

"He's suffering and I'm to blame. "

"It will get better."

"John, when he was a child, he used to say there were voices." John nearly dropped the plate of scrambled eggs and sat down quickly at the table, certain his legs would not hold him up.

"Voices?"

"Oh, no not like that, nothing sinister that told him what to do, but a voice, his own in his mind that never switched off. That's why Daddy wanted him to see the doctors."

"Ah. Problem is if you treat the condition and anesthetise that part of his brain that makes him brilliant, then you take away the man. He would stop being Sherlock, he would empty. He would remember what he was like before and it would kill him."

"Yes, astute as always, I think many people underestimate you Doctor."

"To their detriment usually. It does explain the scars though."

"Scars?"

"Arms, legs, stomach. All quiet old but still there, and no not track marks, those he has as well. He used to cut himself."

"I never had the heart to tell Mummy. She knew of course about the drugs, and it was her effort that finally persuaded him to get clean. He had to work through it himself and he came out the other side. Battered but still Sherlock."

"I'd, ah; best get these to him before they get cold. I'll have no chance of persuading him to eat them then."

Mycroft nodded, long fingers already at the keyboard of his phone.

~~~)))(((~~~

When John arrived back in the ward he found Sherlock propped on the bed, long legs pulled to his chest, and his head bent down on them. A defensive posture and one John was familiar with in the eccentric man.

"Bored?" John asked as he wheeled the tray table over with the plate of eggs and a glass of apple juice.

Sherlock nodded and frowned when he saw the syringe on the tray along with a hot water bottle.

"What are they for?" He felt he should know but right now, basic, go back to basics and he kept the mantra going until he found his equilibrium again.

John cupped the now shaven jaw and stroked his thumb across the flesh below his ear. "You haven't eaten in a while, and you may cramp."

"Ah." Sherlock eyed the food suspiciously and looked between John and the plate of food. John rolled his eyes and took up the fork and ate a mouthful of the eggs himself and smiled.

"I cooked it Sherlock, its ok, just do your best."

The doctor took pity on him after several minutes as he wrestled with the cutlery and gave up in frustration. He pulled his patient forward, stuffed pillows behind his back, tucked the hot water bottled into his lap and scooted up the bed. And slowly he began to feed his friend. Sherlock closed his eyes at the indignity and did his best to co-operate. But the food stuck in his mouth and he choked it down, and gagged after each mouthful. By the time the plate was half empty the tears started to track down his face and he moaned as he clutched the water bottle against his stomach, the pain almost unbearable.

John stopped at once, and administered the drug into the IV. "It will work in a few minutes; do you want to try the apple juice?'

"I want to go home, and sit on the sofa and listen to you type in your blog and eat Chinese and watch crap telly." Sherlock answered. "That's what I want."

"I know, I'm trying to get us there Sherlock, you just need to work with me on this."

Sherlock sniffed once and grabbed his stomach. John saw the colour drain from his face and hastily retrieved the waste bin just in time for Sherlock to throw up. He rubbed his back and waited for the retching to die down before he left to go to the bathroom. He came back with mouthwash and a warm towel.

He felt utterly wretched, and worse still he knew he had disappointed John again. He accepted the gentle ministrations and curled on his side in the bed; knees pulled up around the hot water bottle and refused to speak.

"Do you, want me to stay?" John's voice was soft as he kept the physical contact light.

"Always." Sherlock's voice was a raw whisper over his pain. There were things in his head not meant to be there, things that had been said and it didn't make sense. He didn't want to be frightened, he didn't want to cry, he did want to crawl into Johns arms and never move, he did want to bury his face in the soft wool of the jumper and inhale the scent that meant comfort and safe and home. Instead he closed his eyes against the crisp white linen and shouted at the voices to leave him the fuck alone.


	15. Chapter 15

John sighed it had been a long seventy two hours. Sherlock had improved dramatically. In his professional opinion, he'd improved rather too well, which meant he was acting and not recovering. And it was the oddest times that he caught his friend out in the lie. When he slept and woke in a cold sweat and whimpered his steadfast refusal of comfort, even from John. He was offensive, a nurse fled in despair, agitated and in Watson's mind, scared. But there was more for despite his best efforts, Sherlock was still not capable of holding down the food that was offered. And John had tried just about everything, short of Kung Po Chicken.

He squared his shoulders and peered into the ward.

Mycroft had fretted in his own way, and offered psychiatrists, counselling, even at one point to suggest full time care. Despite John's adamant no's, it was almost to the point where he might just have to acquiesce to the family.

This was his last shot and he plastered on a gentle smile and took the clip board from the end of the bed. He shook his head, the mood swings he could put up with, but the nurses barely stood a chance one even quit the night before when Sherlock had been at his most brutal.

"Before you start." John held up his hand and looked at the recalcitrant features of his best friend. "The IV can come out; I see little point in it being left in."

Sherlock was startled and he dropped his head back to his chest. "Not good?"

"A bit not good, yeah. However, I think I may have a solution, if you're prepared to give it a try." John pulled the IV out of his arm and pressed a plaster into place.

"Why?"

"Ah..." John sat down on the side of the bed and just took a moment to look, "could be a lot of answers to a lot of different questions. Which one are you asking Sherlock?"

"All of them I guess." Sherlock dropped his voice, to a whisper.

"I can't answer all of them, but I can answer some. Believe it or not, your behaviour is perfectly normal." John reached out and slid his hand into the dark curls and pushed them back from his face in time to see Sherlock scoff.

"No really. Think out it. You were kidnapped, after a long and arduous few days, you hadn't eaten or slept, you were totally absorbed by Moriarty. You, we, went through a building explosion, being strapped to a bomb and being toyed with by a psychopath."

"And of course you call this normal?" Sherlock smiled for the first time in days.

"Well, for us, yes. But then you have been abused, physically and emotionally. And if you sit here in a ward and try to recover from something that happened in a ward is wont work. So it's time to try something new."

"Like?" Sherlock frowned again, the smooth porcelain skin still translucent as he bit his lip.

"Like, let's get out of here."

"We can go home?"

"Not yet, but we can leave the ward, maybe have something to eat in more normal surroundings and see how we go?" John offered gently.

"That wasn't the question I was asking, John."

"Said I couldn't answer them all, do you have a particular question you wanted answered?"

"Why do you stay?"

"With you?"

"Yes. No one stays with me John, people, sane people run, usually very fast." Sherlock's voice was self depreciating.

"Look, I don't know what happened in the past, but I don't have to compete with you. It's not about me holding my own, we are different. So whilst you intimidate the hell out of me, you're still just a man."

"Just?"

"Ok a bloody genius if you like, but your still under all of that massive intellect and ego, human, Sherlock and I think you forget that sometimes."

"But you don't?"

"Nope."

"Is that why you care about me?" The dulcet toned voice was small again his eyes downcast and he could feel the thud of Johns heart through the pulse in his wrist that he didn't realise he held.

"I don't know why." John drew a deep breath and smiled. "If we knew why we cared then we'd have the answer to the ultimate question of life. I just do."

"Really?" Sherlock smiled like it was Christmas.

"Yes, now get up and come on. I spend far too much of my life in wards and I don't want to have this conversation with you in another one."

"You might like to reconsider that." Sherlock offered after a few seconds.

"Why would I do that?" John pulled him up and slid slippers over the dressings on his feet and looked up.

Sherlock reached out and ran his fingers through John's short cropped hair. "Because."

"Your right, I'll get the defibrillator."

Sherlock scowled.

"You need to slow down; you don't know what you want right now. You've been through too much. Let's just get you sorted yeah? A couple of good nights sleep some food that stays down."

"Did Mycroft tell you about the voice?" Sherlock swung his legs like an overactive child.

"The one that's never quiet you mean? Or the one you tried to silence when you cut yourself?"

"Both. It's never quiet John, sometimes I just need it to be quiet and there are other things in there, that shouldn't be."

John stilled. "Like what?"

"Doubts, fear, pain, rejection, all of it and I don't know what's real." The pain in the cultured voice left little doubt in Johns mind that this was Sherlock, the real man not the caricature that he portrayed himself to be, and he sat with him shoulder to shoulder.

"Most of the confusion is from lack of sleep and lack of nutrition. I don't think your mad Sherlock, well no crazier than you usually are. You just need to get back to what feels normal and not like a victim."

"Thank you." Sherlock reached his arms out to John who helped him stand and together they wandered down into the kitchen. Sherlock braced against the smaller man's shoulders, John's arm held firm around the too thin waist.

~~~)))(((~~~~

Mycroft loved the house, and he had many to choose from, but this one was home, it had been Mummy's. In his greatest times of need it was where he had always chosen to be. The country estate was Sophia's and when the marriage ended in divorce then it would be part of the settlement, but not this one, not home and for that he was grateful to his strange brother.

Sherlock had disliked Mycroft's bride on sight, there was no love lost on either side, she simpered at him and he ignored her. But he had told him months before the wedding that she would not be faithful, that he was a trophy for her to have the life she wanted. It was not a love match and he needed to guard himself and his fortune if he didn't want to have to pay for her lifestyle at the detriment of his own.

Mycroft had been furious, even going so far as to consider the withdrawal of the role of best man from his brother, but in the cold light of reason he recognised the truth behind the words, and the total lack of menace or rancour from his little brother. And for that, now he was grateful. Sophia had never resided at the Manor and never would.

He frowned and stopped as he neared the kitchen, it was the second one of course not the big industrial model downstairs but Mummy's kitchen cluttered with her French antiques, an old oak table large enough for the family to sit around and padded mismatched chairs, he believed the style to be shabby chic, and Sophia had loathed it. Mycroft smiled ruefully, probably another reason she was not such a good match for him. He heard voices, more specific Sherlock's voice and he couldn't help the smile that spread across his face. The scene before him when he entered would probably live in his memory for the rest of his life.

The smell of freshly cooked pancakes and tea, Sherlock crouched up on one of Mummy's chairs like he used to when he helped her bake as a child, feet tucked onto the seat edge, and John sat before him. His left leg propped on the rung of Sherlock's chair, the right side wedged against the table as Sherlock ate from the fork John held out. There was colour again in those high cheeks and little laugh lines around the strange and compelling eyes as he listened to John's tale.

"You look very comfortable." Mycroft announced as he imposed himself into the room, John didn't move and Sherlock cocked his head to one side.

"Ah and how was the lovely Mrs Holmes?" His voice was an echo of his former acerbic self but it had lost its real heat and for that Mycroft was relieved.

"How can you possibly tell that?" John asked as he rolled the pancake around the lemon and sugar and cut himself a piece before he added liberal amounts of butter to Sherlock's.

"Hmm? Oh Mycroft always goes that colour when he has to talk to her." He smiled.

"Sophia is well and staying in Venice."

Sherlock chewed slowly and frowned. "Mummy left me this house Mycroft I don't know why you're so worried."

"Sorry, what?" John looked between the two brothers.

"Mummy left Sherlock this house; I reside in it by mutual agreement." Mycroft added as he poured himself a cup of tea from the Victorian tea pot.

"And Sophia wants it included in the divorce am I right?"

"Unfortunately, yes."

"Won't happen, she can't be that dense, she knows it's mine."

"Sorry, but you live in a small flat when you could live here?" John hadn't caught up to the siblings yet and Sherlock smiled.

"Be reasonable John, I'd have blown it up by now; Mummy knows that, she just didn't want me left out of the estate since Mycroft got the line share."

"I did not, I got sixty percent of Daddy's and you got the rest, you'll get most of Mummy's that's fair."

Mycroft sat down and Sherlock took a good long look at his brother. "You should eat, John made pancakes. They really are excellent."

"So I see."

"Plenty left in the oven." John motioned with his fork as Sherlock took another bite and then smiled innocently at his doctor.

"Thank you." Mycroft helped himself and like Sherlock added liberal amounts of butter, then sugar and finally the lemon, almost like a ritual.

"And I didn't mean it like that. I have very little need of the money Mycroft. You are much more patient with it than I am." Long fingers reached for the cup of tea and unconsciously John reached to steady his hand.

"Would you see it as an intrusion if I was to enquire how you are?" Mycroft ate slowly and made a small noise of satisfaction as he bit into the fluffy morsel.

"I'm getting better."

"And the voice?"

"Not as bad as it was, certainly not as destructive as it was." Sherlock put the cup down the tremble in the long limbs didn't go unnoticed by either of his companions.

"Sherlock?" John asked quietly.

"It's fine. She said things to me; things that made sense at the time, to isolate and hurt me. And she almost succeeded, but there were a few things that rationally I know were lies but the fear is there nevertheless."

"I'm not dead." John consoled as he leaned his leg against the curled body.

"And I was not complicit in you being sectioned by a psychopath." Mycroft said as he kept his voice and gaze firm.

"You knew?" Sherlock asked.

"Yes, it was one of the few things she could have said that made sense, our relationship has been hostile for years, but you've never been afraid of me before."

"Well not since I was sixteen." Sherlock's voice was flat.

"Wait, hold on, Arabella told you that your brother arranged to have you abducted and sectioned?"

"Along with you being dead, and Lestrade's abuse of Sherlock's talents."

Sherlock looked down, calm for the first time in days, the shadows behind his eyes still there, but less obvious.

"Amongst other things." Sherlock admitted.

"Like?" John offered more pancake and Sherlock shook his head, a small panicked look crossed his face when John went to move and in complete syncopation the doctor soothed with his hand on the dark unruly curls. "I'm not going far, and I will come back."

Sherlock watched him move to the butler sink and rinse the plates before he stacked them in the dishwasher.

"Oh please! You're wrong, take a look brother dear." Mycroft put his own plate away and squeezed the thin shoulder. The detective's long fingers moved to the hand and for a moment Mycroft feared he'd overstepped the boundaries of their truce. He was startled when Sherlock squeezed gently and looked up; hope a fragile thing in his eyes. And in that moment he was seven again, when he hoped his big brother, his ally could fix whatever mess he'd gotten into. Perfect trust and perfect peace graced the aquiline features and Mycroft squeezed again softer this time. "She lied Midge, especially about that."

Sherlock cleared his throat and drew a deep breath. "Has Mummy called yet?"

"Daily." John resumed his seat aware that Mycroft had managed to allay several of the fears that swirled in that overactive imagination, but he was confused about the last exchange.

"Oh and John, Lestrade would like to interview you and my brother when you think he is up to it of course."

"I'm fine." Sherlock spoke for himself at the same time John said.

"Tomorrow. You need to sleep first." John forestalled the argument.

"Tomorrow." Sherlock accepted graciously, his body full and warm for the first time in what seemed like a lifetime and he began to doze.

"Your room is ready." Mycroft said softly.

"Could I sit in the conservatory?" the mood swing again in the cultured voice told of his exhaustion.

"Of course, we can sit in the window seat in the sun and listen to some music yes?" John asked and Sherlock nodded.

"I'll organise some blankets and pillows." Mycroft let to do whatever it was that Mycroft did, Watson's smile was short lived when Sherlock spoke again.

"Good, now perhaps you would care to show me the texts Moriarty has sent to you."


	16. Chapter 16

**_Many thanks to the most awesome 13th Rhapsody for fixing my crappy French! You rock! Hope you enjoy - yay 100 reviews! thank you thank you, bunny is happy..._**

"How on earth did you know about the texts?" John asked as he settled Sherlock onto the window seat and covered him with a soft afghan blanket.

"Because I'm observant." Sherlock complained an eerie facsimile of his former self. "When you thought I was asleep you texted your Mother your new number, and reprogrammed the replacement phone that Mycroft bought me."

"And from this you assumed it was Moriarty, despite him being dead."

"I've just spent a week with his twin sister who is still very much alive. Besides every time you got a text the nerve in your jaw jumped and you were anxious until you read them, the relief was palpable."

"Ah. I had thought you missed that." John smiled as he settled next to his friend with the paper.

" Me? I missed it? Really John? I'll admit to being a bit scrambled but I'm not that vacant." Sherlock huffed and looked out onto the grounds.

"I got three texts in all, the first asked after your health. The second requested an update and the last was an offer of a temporary truce until you were well enough to return to the game. Mycroft was there when the last one came and confiscated my phone."

"Interesting, but not unexpected." Sherlock mused as he steepled his hands in a prayer position just under his chin. "I can see you in the glass John, why are you smiling?"

"Because I missed you." John went back to the crossword and Sherlock frowned. "And I can see your face in the glass Sherlock, stop scowling."

"I used to play out there when I was a child." Sherlock pressed his face to the warmed glass and relished the sun on his pale face.

"So Mycroft said."

"Oh yes?" the tone was bored and sarcastic in one breath, if that was even possible.

"You broke your leg when you fell out of the oak tree."

"I was four."

"You thought you could fly." John retorted.

"I was four."

"Yes I heard the first time, tell me did you have a Superman cape?" John giggled now and Sherlock pursed his lips into a thin hard line.

"I. Was. Four."

"Or was it wings?"

"Clearly you are not listening." Sherlock closed his eyes and sagged against the pillow and something warm and fuzzy. It took a moment to realise John had in fact joined him on the window seat and was still looking over the crossword.

"I'm listening, I always listen Sherlock, even when you make me go out in the cold to get milk because you forgot."

"Until you moved in I never bothered with milk." Sherlock sighed and pulled the cover up higher over his shoulders and rested more firmly against his doctor who just smiled and made room for him against his chest.

"According to Geoff you didn't need help with the rent either, you managed perfectly well on your own in Montague Street and the rent there was significantly higher."

"No, I didn't."

"You were lonely?"

Sherlock shrugged. "Everyone gets lonely sometime John. I work better when I talk out loud and my skull only draws stares in public."

"Knew I was only filling in for the bloody skull." John clicked the pen against his teeth and in an instant Sherlock hitched his breath and couldn't breathe. John looked down and Sherlock had gone very pale and trembled underneath his right arm. "Ok, ok. Safe Sherlock, you're safe, tell me what's wrong. Talk to me, tell me what was the trigger."

"Trigger?" Sherlock stammered.

"You're having a flashback what was the trigger?"

"You," Sherlock cursed himself for sounding like a fool, but he couldn't stop the tremble as he burrowed into the warmth of his friend. "You clicked the pen on your teeth. She did that, all the time, and when she did she would be so much worse."

John held him tighter, the crossword abandoned as he cradled Sherlock against his chest and gently rubbed his back, after a few moments his breathing levelled out yet he refused to move.

"Try to sleep Sherlock; I'll wake you for dinner."

A tight nod against his chest was the only answer.

~~~))((~~~

Sherlock was woken with a gentle shove on his shoulder and looked up into his brother's face. John slid out from where he had been and the detective felt the cold immediately. Mycroft pushed again and held the cordless phone out to him.

"Mummy." Mycroft mouthed.

"Bonjour Maman." Sherlock smoothly transitioned into French and John hitched his breath. In English Sherlock's voice was a beautiful modulated baritone, but in French he was downright sexy and John left the room ostensibly to give his friend some privacy. Mycroft had no qualms in staying with his brother.

"Mais qu'est-ce que Mycroft vous a raconté?" (_Just what has Mycroft been telling you_?) Sherlock scowled in the direction of his brother.

"Only that you were hurt and are getting better at home." Mycroft said softly, appeased Sherlock turned towards the window and looked at the afternoon sun across the manicured lawns.

"Oui Maman, je vais bien." (_Yes Mummy, I'm fine_.) His voice was soft, and he drew a breath and closed his eyes, the sound of his mother's voice a balm to his beleaguered soul. "Oui, je me remets, je suis simplement fatigué." (_Yes, I am getting better, I'm just tired_.)

Mycroft smiled when he saw John lean against the door frame and watch.

"Non Maman, vous n'avez pas besoin de revenir a la maison, John et Mycroft sont ici. Non Maman, Mycroft ne m'énerve pas, je crois qu'il a peur de John."

(_No Mummy, you don't need to come home, John and Mycroft are with me. No Mummy Mycroft is not irritating me; I think he's scared of John_.)

"I'm not afraid of John." Mycroft grumbled and Sherlock grinned triumphantly.

"Oui, il est adorable. Mycroft est toujours là, je vais vous le repasser, d'accord? Oui, moi aussi je vous aime. Au revoir."

(_Yes, he is adorable, Mycroft is still here, I'll put him back on shall I? Yes, I love you too, bye_.)

Sherlock handed the phone back to Mycroft who continued in perfect French and wandered out of the room, John heard Sophia's name said with disdain as the door to the study closed.

"So who's adorable?" John asked as he returned. Sherlock blushed and burrowed further into the blanket.

"I didn't know you spoke French."

"Mon francais est passable" John pulled the blanket back from Sherlock's feet, unwrapped the wounded limbs and checked the dressings, aware that his friend had changed the subject. "Gap year before I went to Barts."

"Ah, with all the pretty French girls." Sherlock smiled. "Your pronunciation is terrible."

" The dressings look fine, but I'd like to check on your blood work. Will you be alright if I leave you for a bit?"

Sherlock pouted gently. "Yes. I'll be fine; Mycroft will no doubt come and badger me about something soon."

~~~)))(((~~~

Sherlock wiggled his toes and stretched and curled his toes on the rug before he got up and headed to the study aware that Mycroft was still in the middle of his conversation with their Mother. He went over to the bookshelf and pulled down a photo album, Mummy had loved her projects and a complete photographic record of their childhood was one of them, beautifully laid out in loving detail within the black pages in his lap.

He flipped pages irritably and stopped when Mycroft sat next to him on the couch.

"I like that one." Mycroft said as he pointed to the photo on the page. In it Sherlock was fourteen, all long limbs and black curly hair with intense eyes and a wicked grin as he dropped a bucket of water on a much younger Mycroft, who already showed his penchant for the expensive business suits.

"You were not happy on the day." Sherlock snapped the book shut.

"No, you used to look at me like that."

"I have no idea what you're dribbling on about."

"Yes you do, you look at John now how you used to look at me, with one exception."

"I should damn well hope so." Sherlock muttered.

"How long have you been in love with him?"

"I thought you knew everything, you must be getting old." Sherlock snarked and Mycroft laughed.

"Yes I believe I am. John will be down in the clinic for a while, a couple of our people need his attention. In the meantime," Mycroft rubbed his hands together, "do you want to help me make dinner? Or shall I have Cook do it?"

"Depends on what you want to make."

"Let's see what the good doctor has stocked the fridge with." Mycroft held out his hand to his brother and helped him stand, Sherlock wobbled and for the first time since childhood he sighed dramatically and embraced his brother. Mycroft's heart stopped for a moment, it was alien and awkward but then Mycroft remembered the child that his brother had been and how he loved to be held before he returned the embrace and closed his eyes. "I have missed you Midge."

"I told you, stop calling me that." But there was no heat.

~~~)))(((~~~

John found Mycroft and Sherlock in Mummy's kitchen, he watched as Sherlock pulled the salmon from the poaching liquid and handed it to his brother wordlessly, the movements in complete unison as Mycroft whipped the potatoes, a silent look passed between the brothers as they both smiled at the same time and Mycroft added more butter.

John shook his head, he'd lived with the mad genius for over six months now and Sherlock made a point of take out, never once did he exhibit the slightest interest in cooking yet by the looks of it he was particularly competent.

"I'll remember this next time it's your turn to make supper." John laughed and Sherlock ducked his head.

"Sherlock is an excellent cook, Mummy made sure of that."

"John's food tastes better." Sherlock replied softly and sat down, the fatigue showed on the pale face.

"Ahuh." John reached for the long hand and took Sherlock's pulse. "Any more flashbacks?"

"Flashbacks?" Mycroft's voice was icy as he plated the fish, asparagus and potatoes onto three plates and set them down on the table.

"Earlier Sherlock had a flashback to when he was kidnapped, it unsettled him."

"I'm in the room." Sherlock crossed his arms across his chest defensively.

"Yes we can see that." Mycroft spoke as he picked up his cutlery. "What was the trigger?"

"Oh, I ah, clicked the pen against my teeth."

"Suddenly I'm not hungry." Sherlock insisted.

"Yes you are, stop being childish." Mycroft admonished.

"As I said to our mother, I am fine, will you two stop bloody talking about me like I'm an absent child!"

John nodded. "Seems fair. Eat your dinner."

Sherlock picked at his food and began to doze in the warm room. He didn't realise it until John and Mycroft with an arm each around his back almost lifted him from the chair and walked him to his room, despite the muttered protestations from the detective.

~~~)))(((~~~

Watson heaved a sigh of relief, he looked at the clock it was only nine in the evening and he was shattered. The towel hung around his neck as he pulled the duvet back on the ornate four poster bed and smiled.

Finally a bed and he hoped with it a good night's rest. When he'd looked in on his patient a few minutes ago Sherlock was curled in the dark red sheets sound asleep. So far the plan had worked, out of the ward in a single day he'd had two meals and more interrupted sleep than in the previous ten days.

When the blood tests had come back and he'd worried for his friend. A complete hodgepodge of pharmacology had been pumped into the man which included curare, LSD, and Ketamine. The fact that Sherlock was still able to operate at all was testament to the vast intellect and sense of self the man possessed.

Now in the quiet of his room, with the door closed and the worst he hoped behind them, Watson did the one thing that he had dreaded. He took out his own emotions and began a careful inspection of the wonderful and bizarre friendship that existed between himself and Holmes.

His therapist had been right, he did have trust issues, three tours of duty in Afghanistan was enough for you to lose faith in humanity all together, but for him to fall so quickly and so completely for the mad man in the room next door was to say the least unnerving.

In less than half a year Holmes had become flatmate, friend, therapist and colleague all in one fell swoop, and it didn't end there. It was only a matter of time before he fell headlong into romance and he shook himself soundly.

Sherlock for all his prevarication of relationship was still fundamentally human, had had a score of lovers in the past according to Mycroft and had abandoned them all as soon as they wanted anything more, so what would be different with their friendship? Could he even trust his own judgement? The psychological state of a person who had the emotional range of a shoebox, who had been abused, drugged, isolated and terrified, was an explosive mix. Add to that a relationship with the only person he appeared to fully trust and it was a train wreck that waited to happen.

But like a moth to flame Watson knew he would be drawn and all Sherlock had to do was ask, which if he knew the man well enough would never happen. So was he happy about that or terrified? He shook his head again, like a bull dog pup who tried to escape the collar around his neck. He needed to sleep and trust to a God he only now understood looked out for all old soldiers and egotistical geniuses.

~~~)))(((~~~

For two hours and seventeen minutes Sherlock had looked at the clock on the bedside table and rubbed his hand over his eyes. He couldn't sleep, he was scared. There he'd said it again and he meant it. Every time he closed his eyes the orderlies were back, they touched him in ways that no man should be handled. The brutality of their suggestions, of their hands against his tender flesh undid him and even though he was loathed to admit it, he had been helpless.

All of his vast intellect had fled from him in that single moment of terror when he knew he couldn't move. They had pumped him so full of drugs that his body was no longer his own, and unlike his use of the recreational devices these were meant to humiliate . And her words like daggers cut into his soul, she had seized up the name that was rent from numb lips and had used and abused that to her own device until he had believed all that she had said.

She knew he loved, and in that graceless heap had found himself to be truly alone, for the object of his desire was beyond him in reach and in mind and she had played upon that weakness. Now to let it stand or cut it away as one may do with a cankerous growth was the question. Was it worthy of him to be weakened by love or should he become embolden by it, to know he no longer stood alone, to be without the treachery of his heart or by his own device isolated. He feared both equally and then her words dripped like acid onto a wound.

"He could never love you. Look how he drools and runs after Sarah."

And further she submitted to his intellect. "He is dull, normal and vacant how can you subject yourself to a lifetime of such stale affection?"

But the truth was the only thing that hurt was the tiny voice that screamed at him that he was not worthy, that John would never love him and for that and only that was he in tempered with grief and sorrow. For that alone he would shed the tears that remained and pray for a quick salvation from when John rejected him. In all his heart, and yes he did admit in the dead of night, he had one that he guarded jealously it was the fear that no one would ever want him, that forever he would be the freak.

"For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come." His laughter was as bitter as the tears that travelled down his face. Even in death he would find no peace, he had courted her briefly. It was not God or conscience that stayed his hands when his wicked Jack knife had scoured virgin flesh but fear that if he cut too deep and let the crimson of his blood flow freely, that even then the voice would never be stilled.

He laid upon the bed in weary discontent as he watched the patterns on the ceiling change with the position of the moon as it reached zenith ward in her course and reign, until his eyes grew heavy and the nightmares came once unbidden.


	17. Chapter 17

**_A/N: Sorry for the long delay in updating, Myanmar would not give me a connection *sigh* I have updated the rating to M, and there will be a sequal! Titled Crucible. Thanks for the reviews you are keeping the bunny happy... now ahem back to the story..._**

It was there in his bones, a creeping lethargy as he wandered the halls of his family home. Outside the world was dark and bleak, illuminated by the light of the gibbous moon that hung mournfully over the world. Fog, thick and dense curled like sticky fingers around the bark of the ancient oaks and he was hard pressed to find solitude or warmth despite his youth in these hollow, hallowed halls of antiquity. He understood why Mummy had left him this house, but it housed too many memories, many would inspire awe from the hardest of hearts but in this place as well he came to understand how very different he was, and such a burden to his parents.

His father had been an honourable man, loyal, erudite and steadfast with patrician features and a strong constitution but he was often baffled by his son. Mycroft was so much like his father, his mentor, his greatest teacher that it hurt to look upon those similar features and feel anything but anger and betrayal. So he had steeled his heart in a foreign land and came back to a house that was no longer his by anything other than title.

By nineteen he'd been sent away to yet another school and ignored most deliberately on his visits home, his father despaired that this odd child would find suitable employment and do the family proud or if he would maintain his confounded stubbornness of all things criminal and become the wastrel he feared him likely to be.

And every word was an anchor in his heart, every touch he was denied, even his grades which topped not only the British record but the school's and to this day still stood as a perfect score, could no longer melt the frost in his father's heart. So Sherlock gave up his romantic notions that he had the proud Father he longed for.

Never once did he come to watch him box and earn titles well above his weight, nor when he played to concert standard his beloved violin was his father aware or even interested. From there the word Freak came and stayed to this day, to haunt the living man as it haunted his soul. And still Sherlock wandered from room to room.

His feet throbbed with renewed pain and a rattle shook his chest from the cold John had fought so valiantly to stave off. He wrapped his arms around his body against the chill but found no warmth, so he ignored it and continued his restless quest.

Dark shadows now loomed as the clock struck nearly one and he shivered as the cough took him again. He ran long sensitive fingers across the tapestry on the wall, grounded himself in the dark wood of the banister which came away cold to the touch and found himself outside John's door. He had circuited the entire house to come to the room closest to his own and there he stood, his breath hitched in his chest and her words again unravelled his mind. His fingers shook as he opened the door gently and stood at the end of the bed and watched his friend sleep.

The tawny eyes the only ones that had shown him warmth, that were genuinely amazed by his ability and who was never critical of him. Sherlock smirked, well almost never. The last few days before the incident in the pool he had been at his brutal best and still this man, this calm solid man, put himself in front of a bullet for him, had killed a man to save him and had stood up for him so many times he could no longer count and yet he had come back every time.

Sherlock waited for the day it would be too much and inside the voice screamed that if that happened, if he allowed that to be then his mind as well as his heart would lose its tenuous hold on reality.

His feet throbbed even more but he ignored it, another pain to bear, and another ache that he couldn't control as he looked out the window.

~~~)))(((~~~

John stirred, he would never know what woke him but he had a sense, probably from his time in the army when he could tell when he wasn't alone in a room. He woke quickly but even to the trained eye he slumbered on as he watched the shadow that stood at the high arched window in his bedroom. He stood down his anxiety and looked at the bedside clock.

"Sherlock what the hell are you doing here at two fifteen AM?" His voice was sharper than usual as he wiped a hand across his face to dispel the last of sleep and saw the tremor that shook the other man.

Holmes wore nothing but a thin cotton T-shirt and flannel pyjama bottoms, despite the central heating it was the middle of October and the room was cold. The tremble again as Sherlock refused to turn around and John sighed wearily, obviously a full night's sleep would evade him yet again. More worrying still was that the other man hadn't moved his arms folded across his chest as he kept his gaze on the grounds below.

"Sherlock?" John tried again, his tone softer now; aware that something was wrong he pulled his gown off the bed and padded across the cold floor to his friend. Holmes moved as if in sleep as John sat him down on the bed and flicked the small lamp on, the blood on his feet stark against the white cotton socks and John sighed.

"She said," Sherlock's voice was soft, hesitant as he reached fingers down to card through the short hair as John unwrapped his feet and scowled at the damage.

"What?" John didn't look up; he didn't feel as though he could bear to see the aching vulnerability in this man so kept his own head bent to the task of inspecting his feet.

"That you would leave." And there it was. The four words that in all the time Sherlock has been abused and molested the only thing that could undo him was laid before the man who crouched at his feet. He looked up finally to prove to himself that this was not another of Holmes manipulations and saw the fear so vibrant on his face that he felt himself humbled by it.

John shook his head as he wrapped his robe around the thin shoulders and braced his hands on Sherlock's thighs. "She lied."

"Did she? You will learn to hate me, just as they all do, and then you will be gone." Sherlock coughed and John winced when he heard the rattle in the thin chest.

"She lied." John emphasised again and reached up to brush the troubled brow with his hand. "I am not leaving you, not now, not until you grow weary of me and tell me to go."

"Why would you do that?" Sherlock was up and pacing again and John saw the bloody footprints that marked his friend's restless orbit. "You shot a man to keep me safe and you had known me for less than a week, you argued with Dimmock when he refused to accept my deductions and demanded he listen to me, no one ever stands up for me John, no one, not even my father did that, and then you were prepared to take a bullet?" he face was contorted with something other than pain as he continued, all the while breathless, casually unconcerned to the damage he was doing to his body. "What's that about? You were prepared to die in order to kill Moriarty and let me live? Why would you do that John? I don't understand."

At this John smiled despite the ache in his heart. "Sherlock?" he stood now in front of the man effectively in his way to make him stand still and Sherlock looked up. "Will you listen?"

A tight nod and John led him back to the bed. "Don't move." He ordered as he got his doctors bag and a warm towel from the bathroom, wordlessly he wiped the blood from the long elegant toes and redressed the wound; thankfully it looked worse than it really was. When done he pushed the stethoscope against his chest and Sherlock tried to shove him away. John took both hands in his, placed them calmly onto his lap and bent his head back to his task.

Finally he shook out two pills from a small white bottle and handed them to Sherlock who ignored them. "Open." John commanded and to his utter surprise Sherlock responded immediately. "They will help your chest, but wandering around, loosing blood in the middle of the night is not one of your smartest ideas you idiot!" John admonished and Sherlock's pale eyes regarded him dully.

The doctor came to his decision quickly and pushed Sherlock down into the bed as he pulled the blankets still warm from his body heat up around his friend, snapped off the light and crawled in to face the confused stare.

"Because I love you." John said softly and he saw the first sign of tears well up in the expressive eyes. Sherlock reached out to his friend and rubbed his knuckles across his cheek.

"I can have this?" he asked his voice soft with wonder and pain.

"As much or as little as you want. But not right now." John answered as he pulled the trembling man into his arms.

"Here." Sherlock said finally as he pressed his ear to Johns heart and patted the firm chest below him. "The voice is quiet when I'm here."

Sherlock slept and John's heart broke a little more.

~~~)))(((~~~

"I'm sorry for the intrusion John but I was worried about him." Mycroft stood at the end of the bed some six hours later and looked at the sleeping features of his brother wrapped firmly around the doctor in the bed.

"No it's alright, he was unsettled last night and I woke to find him here. He's got a chest infection."

"And he's opened the wounds on his feet." Mycroft nodded as John looked over Sherlock's shoulder to the faint marks on the floor. "They are all around the house."

"Did he sleep walk as a child?" John petted the dark curls unconsciously as Sherlock began to stir and burrowed deeper into the solid warmth.

"From puberty, but he stopped by the time they came home from Paris."

"Wasn't sleepwalking." Sherlock mumbled from under the covers.

"No?" John looked down and felt a long leg over his that held him in place.

"No." Was the definite if muffled response, followed by a deep hacking cough that made even Mycroft wince.

"I'll send up breakfast." Mycroft smiled as he moved towards the door. "You're a brave man John Watson."

"Irritating, interfering old fart." Sherlock grouched and coughed again.

"Behave." John admonished. "He was concerned for you."

"Where are you going?" Sherlock popped his curly head above the covers and looked mournfully at John.

"Bathroom, I'll be back."

"Promise?" the soft voice back from last night and Sherlock fiddled with the duvet as he pushed himself up in the bed.

"Do you really need validation of that?" John smiled as he left the room and in the privacy of the bathroom shook his head. _What the hell was he getting himself into?_

He heard the cough and frowned it was too deep and Sherlock whilst normally fit was not at his physical best and he decided to organise some x-rays later in the day.

"Did you mean it?" Sherlock asked mid cough as he wrapped the blanket higher over his chest and watched as John sat on the side of the bed.

"Every word. I seldom say things I don't mean, you should know that."

"I'm worth loving?" again that hesitant voice and John sagged.

"Ok, shall we have this conversation once?" John captured the fidgeting hands in his own and pulled himself closer. "I love you, but that's no surprise. That it took the actions of a psychotic family to make me realise it, well that was a surprise. But I also meant when I said not now. Right now I could never be sure if it was true affection, despair, desperation or gratitude and I don't want any of those things from you."

Sherlock nodded. "I understand."

"Do you? Do you really? Sherlock she shook you badly, but it's not just what she said and did to you, it goes deeper and we both know that. Feelings are not things you are used to having. You understand the nature of love and lust and need because they are fierce motivators for crime, but you don't normally buy into them. So we wait."

"Until?"

"Until you can tell me without a shadow of doubt what you want."

"And if this is all there is?"

"I'll stay no matter what."

"That hardly seems fair."

"My choice Sherlock."

"But if I want it all?"

"Then we have to discuss the terms."

"Terms? What would I have to stop doing?" Sherlock scowled and John laughed despite the moment.

"Stop? You? Honestly Sherlock as if anyone can stop you doing anything. Love in this instance means there are no conditions. I won't try to change you; I will ask that you take a few things into consideration though."

"Like?

"Transport." John smiled as he touched his hand to Sherlock's chest. "This body is all you have and you push it far too hard, at times beyond what it's meant to be. If you have little concern about your own body consider if you will those of us who will feel the ache of your loss. That you don't understand emotions may lead you to making rash decisions."

Sherlock looked up sharply. "I'm having mood swings, I don't eat and I can't sleep without you John, I think you can safely say I understand those feelings."

"I have no doubt, but until you're a little more stable this thing between us goes no further. You are my dearest friend; I will not lose this because you want to go too fast. Respect and honesty Sherlock, communication, tell me what's happened before I find you curled up in pain."

The detective nodded as he clutched the bedding. "My stomach hurts." Sherlock said softly.

"Where?"

"Not cramp like before, higher up." Sherlock held Johns hand over his sternum.

"I want x-rays done today ok? Chest, lungs. And no coffee."

"Can I have a few more minutes?" Sherlock asked.

"Sure, I don't see why not." John crawled back into bed and held his friend tightly against his chest as Sherlock drew a deep sigh and they waited for breakfast.

"You've been forgotten in all of this John." Sherlock's voice was quiet, calm and contemplative.

"Not really."

"Sarah?"

"Is a beautiful woman, but she will never be mine."

"Why?"

"Because she deserves to be in a relationship with someone who wants her."

"Oh."

~~~)))(((~~~

Sally Donovan trudged wearily behind Lestrade as they were buzzed in through the main gate at the Manor. She let out a low whistle as she took in the building and frowned.

"Bloody hell, I knew he came from money, but..." She shook her head and looked to her DI.

"You don't know the half of it, Father was landed gentry, mother is from an aristocratic French family and a Physicist."

"And the Freak's got all of this and lives like a tosser in a flat? He's a lunatic." She spat and Lestrade rounded on her.

"John is right, your attitude sucks Donovan! He may not be likeable by your standards but by all that's holy you will conduct yourself with decorum in this house, in his presence and in the future. Got it?"

She nodded surprised at the outburst. They were ushered into a spacious foyer complete with huge bouquet of flowers on the hall table and a suited butler. Lestrade handed over his coat and scarf and turned in time to see Watson arrive at the front room.

The haunting strains of a violin could be heard, soft and melancholy as Sally came further into the house.

"He up?" Lestrade asked.

"Yep, he's in the conservatory, I'll take you through shall I? Hello Sergeant."

"Doctor." Sally bowed her head and followed behind meekly, the interior, the soft sounds of anguish being expertly coaxed from a violin and the music was getting louder. "Who's playing?" she finally asked and John stopped and smiled.

"Sherlock, you knew he could play right?"

"No, I know he owns a violin, but I never realised."

"Oh well then this should really terrify you." John said with a smirk as he opened the doors to the conservatory. Sherlock was sat in a wrought iron chair, the music stand in front of him, the Strad cradled in long elegant fingers as the bow skimmed across the strings and continued on its haunting path. The music swelled so sweet, so melancholy that she thought she might cry until she looked at his face. The study of his hands forgotten and he was breathtaking. All the arrogance and lunacy she associated with this man was gone, instead he bit his lip gently as he continued to tease the instrument, and his face flushed the dark curly hair in a loose mop around his face and a look of intense concentration as he swayed.

"Fuck, I wonder if he looks like that when he has sex." She blurted out and then blushed furiously; even Lestrade couldn't help but stifle a smirk.

"I'll let you know when I find out." John kept his face straight as he walked over to Sherlock and stood in front of him. The pale eyes opened and he smiled a real genuine soft smile as John ran his hand through the mad curls. "You have guests."

"Ah excellent." He put the violin down and rubbed his hands together.

"What were you playing?" Lestrade asked as he came forward.

"Liszt." John spoke and his knowledge earned him a fond smile from the detective.

"Consolation number three." He nodded. "Lestrade I have a theory."

"And I'm here to interview you." Geoff growled.

"Dull." Sherlock pouted and caught John attention. "If you must, but first shall we?" He made to stand and John's strong arm caught him around the waist before he toppled over, it was only then that Sally saw the bandages on his feet and the blood that soaked through, she started to notice other things, like the twin spots of high colour on Holmes face and the fine tremor when he stood, or the way he became breathless as John sat him in a lounge chair, pushed a stool underneath his feet and wrapped a blanket around him. He was really sick and she cursed herself for all the awful and hurtful things she had ever said.

"So what's the theory?"

"I need more facts and I'm asking for access to the police records."

"What? Wait? You're asking? Since when do you ask?" Sally couldn't hide her surprise.

"Donovan! What theory Sherlock."

"Moriarty isn't a man."

"A woman?" Donovan said.

"What? Oh hardly no, it is a club, if you will. But I need more details to prove my case. If I'm right Lestrade this will be the biggest thing in your career."

"What do you mean a club?" John sat on the arm of Sherlock's chair and the detective leaned into the warmth unconsciously.

"The cabbie said he was more than a man, and we know that James is dead, Arabella is being cared for by Mycroft which leaves another son and the father, correct?"

"So far." Lestrade nodded.

"What if the games are distractions?" Sherlock steepled his hands together and rubbed his top lip.

"You said that before the pool." John remembered that conversation with aching clarity.

"Yes, yes I did. But they distract me. Oh it's clever? Isn't it clever? Why is it clever?" his hands were running through his hair. "Oh yes, do you see? Do you get it?"

"If you're too busy with the games they are setting up for you, you won't see the other things they don't want you to see." John nodded and Sherlock beamed.

"Yes, yes, but I need to know if I'm right."

"So if you are, and God knows you usually are, when they start their games it's a bluff." Lestrade rubbed the back of his neck.

"Game? Bloody hell people are dying!" Sally admonished.

"Yes I remember John saying the same thing." Sherlock laid back it the chair as a cough rattled up from his lungs.

Lestrade frowned and John reached his hand to the high forehead.

"Moriarty is a facilitator, much in the same ways the mob used to be when they ran protection rackets. In this instance they are paid and he runs the distraction to keep me and The Yard looking elsewhere. We need to track dates and events around the time of the games, like a massive influx of drugs. If they coincide, we can run the gambit without them knowing."

"All right, give me." Lestrade frowned.

"Pardon?" Sherlock coughed again and winced as he rubbed his stomach.

"As you said James is dead and Arabella is unavailable. So unless you've got something to go on, it's all just conjecture."

"The night we bought Sherlock home, I got a text."

"And you're telling me this now?" Lestrade thundered as he paced. Sherlock slumped in the chair and coughed again.

"I had other things on my mind." John barked and Sally noticed that Sherlock began to tremble. "He asked if Sherlock was alright, once again for an update and an offer of a truce until Sherlock was up to rejoining the game. Mycroft took my phone; I assumed he'd told you."

"Doctor." Sally interjected.

"What?" John snapped and followed her gaze. Sherlock was balled in the chair with his arm across his stomach as he hid his face into the soft leather and whimpered. "Fuck!" John swore.

Within a second John had hit a pager in his pocket and the sound of feet echoed to the room, Lestrade had gripped him by the shoulders and Sherlock rocked.

"Where? Sherlock where?" John insisted as he pulled an instant heat pack out of the bag the nurse rushed in with and snapped it as he pushed it into place against the taut stomach. "Did you drink coffee?" John had seen the French press in the conservatory but hadn't thought to ask.

Sherlock whimpered, tears ran down his face as he gasped, "No, I promised I wouldn't John, no."

"Coffee?" Sally Donovan looked frantic as the Doctor pushed back the sleeve of Sherlock's shirt and injected him.

"Poison?" Lestrade jumped to the same conclusion as Donovan.

Sherlock began to relax, one hand gripped in John's jumper as his eyes lost focus and he curled up in the arm chair.

"No, no, ulcer." John said wearily.

"Ulcer?"

"They used ipecac, fingers, salt water, curare, ketamine, LSD, do I need to continue? And when he did eat, they purged him, constantly. He has an ulcer, which the antibiotics should heal. And he needs to rest."

"Who? Who did this to him?" Sally felt that tiny protective urge that drove her to help kick in as she looked on his pale face.

"Moriarty." waHeH


	18. Chapter 18

_**A/N - Well I've finally landed back in Queensland, we are wet but not under flood. Thank you to all the lovlies who have helped keep this story alive! There are two more chapters in this part, followed by an Interlude (standalone story) and then continued on to The Crucible. So I hope you stick with me cause I'm going to be very naughty. :)**_

It had only been a week since John had confirmed evidence of in Sherlocks blood and after several days of tests concluded he was in fact the proud owner of a bouncing baby ulcer. However, it had not stopped him from his relentless quest, he was convinced more than ever that Moriarty was behind some of the biggest crimes in the last ten years, and that speculation had driven him on even when the pain was at it's worst. Sherlock hated being ill, it annoyed him, so he played his violin, went through Mycroft's files from the Home Office and slept.

Sherlock stretched his long legs and paced around the room in increasingly dwindling arcs. The fire crackled low and he smiled. For the first time since his mid teens he found a tiny core of humanity tucked firmly behind the barricade of his heart and he couldn't stop the foolish grin that spread across his face.

"Mummy's coming home." He announced as John came in flanked by Mycroft.

"How?" Mycroft frowned.

"Because you are predictable." Sherlock smiled again.

"No wait, are you smiling?" John stepped fully into the room.

"I have been known to." Sherlock defended.

"Yes but never willingly or without reason." Mycroft intoned as he sat down.

"Well almost never. You remember what I said to Lestrade?"

John nodded for the last week this thought had consumed Sherlock's mind obsessively. "Moriarty is a organization not an individual."

"Honestly Sherlock." Mycroft huffed as he shook out his paper.

"You should know not to underestimate me." Sherlock was still grinning. "Lestrade gave me access to the information I requested. I've completed an analysis of the events around the same time as both of the London events we know James to be copasetic with. It appears he was involved with the bank incident as well." Sherlock was in the 'zone' as John called it now and even Mycroft put the paper down, stunned into silence by his younger brother's ability. "While we were chasing the demented cabbie a large consignment of diamonds flooded the market, most likely the very same diamonds that disappeared from the De Beers consignment over twelve months ago, and several companies had speculated heavily which in turn devalued the stocks held by said major parties, including Shad Sanderson bank."

Mycroft sat forward.

"Ah I see I have your attention." Sherlock smiled. "When we broke the cipher and you had us looking for the Bruce Partington plans a major contractor for the British Armed forces lost a contract it had maintained over the course of many years, this company had lost millions because of the diamond exchange, and now faced with financial ruin they took steps to recover those losses for their stockholders. Those steps concluded with,"

"The Iranian Arms deal – how did you even know about that?" Mycroft rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"Everything is available if you know where to look." Sherlock said smugly.

"Wait, wait. Diamonds flooded the market, the arms company had diversified it's stock portfolio to include diamond purchases, lost the contract to the government and its profit margin so sold weapons to Iran?" John frowned.

"Oh but it gets better." Sherlock sat down now, the pain in his feet a dull ache but they no longer bled and for that he was relieved. "An amount of weapons grade plutonium had been unaccounted for since the week before James began his bombing run, that plutonium was in London and was on sent to via a courier across Europe."

"Korea." Mycroft flicked furiously though his PDA and scowled.

"North in fact. Now since all of these things happened in London or at the very least in the UK it seems suspicious to me I would get a call for a case in Minsk the day the plutonium landed."

"No. No, really?" John looked puzzled as the dawn of reason lit his eyes.

"Really, it was all a ploy. At this stage I can't locate any useful information of what happened during my stay with Arabella, I'll have to go to Scotland Yard to have a look for that, it will be obscure. They are clever."

"Which puts you in direct danger." Mycroft stood now. "If they did all of this to keep you particularly off the scent then they will stop at nothing to kill you."

"And what would you have me do Mycroft?" Sherlock's voice was the calm of an impending storm and John shivered in its wake. "If I don't play the game, then Moriarty will continue the tirade to keep Scotland Yard busy and away from their other enterprises, and as we have seen they will stop at nothing."

"Your safety is my priority!" Mycroft snapped his cool demeanour for once slipped and Sherlock frowned.

"Innocent people will die anyway, at least with me around they stand a chance, honestly Mycroft surely even you are not that inhuman that you can see that."

"Girls, girls ok settle down." John added finally as the portent of the conversation caught up with him. "They know that the Yard rely on Sherlock and if they want to distract anyone it would have to include The Yard. If they kill Sherlock they will tie up minor resources."

"Resources?" Mycroft hadn't considered the option but he became increasingly alarmed by the turn of events.

"Diversions." Sherlock said softly. "I'm yet to give Lestrade his interview and I'll get access to the rest of the files while I'm there. Domestic criminal activity is my field Mycroft, when it becomes apparent it is Moriarty then you can take a closer look at what is happening across the UK, it puts you one up on them, don't you see?" Sherlock emphasised the point with a little bounce and John couldn't hide the smile, his irrepressible spirit may have been bruised but obviously not broken.

"Perhaps, but if I sense you are in danger little brother I will intervene." Mycroft grudgingly agreed.

"When is Mummy arriving?"

"You can't change topics mid course." John insisted.

"Why not? There is nothing more I can do at the moment John, beside if I'm not mistaken by the furious texting, Mycroft has already alerted the MOD and the Home Office."

"Yes, quiet right. Mummy will be here by the end of the week."

John wasn't sure which part of the conversation filled him with more dread, the thought that Sherlock was such a threat to these people they would stoop to hurt him again, or that Mummy was coming home. Either way, John figured he was screwed.

~~~)))(((~~~

"You're worried." Sherlock stated with calm insolence as John sat on the bed.

"What? Of course I'm worried Sherlock."

"Do **you** want me to stop?" Sherlock frowned, a tiny hint of disappointment in the dark timbre of his voice.

"Stop? What? Oh no." John ran his hand through his hair. "No we had that conversation didn't we?"

Sherlock smiled. "Yes."

"Idiot." John smiled as well despite the foreboding.

"But there is a question there John I can see it."

"Yes but not the one you think I want to ask."

"Indeed?" it was rare for Sherlock to misread the situation, but obviously he had.

"Why the drugs?" John's voice was soft but the ache behind it forced Sherlock to sit next to his friend.

"I'm sure Mycroft told you."

"Mycroft says a lot but tells me very little. I don't buy that you did it to annoy him, or that you wanted the quiet, because drugs, the type you were taking, don't make your head quiet. Psychotic yes, quiet no. So I'm curious. Were you bored?"

"Bored?" Sherlock thought for a moment. "Maybe. Look John I'm no saint, as I said to you before I'm not a hero, my past is a dark lonely place that makes me cringe when I think on it. But I walked away from it and left it there."

"Did you? Is that why you call yourself a sociopath when you're not?" John challenged.

"What makes you think I'm not?"

"Because innocent people will die, or the fact you love me and despite yourself your brother."

Sherlock frowned. "Emotions confuse me, it's not that I don't have them, they are just superfluous to what I do, in fact they get in the way, so if I'm not emotionally invested and rely on pure logic I'm successful, if I allow other things to colour my judgement then it dilutes what I do. I've learned to not feel."

"So you cauterized your emotional self in order to apply pure logic, I understand that. In fact it makes sense. So now that those feelings have begun to bleed through do you think you can stop them again?"

"When I need to, perhaps not as much as I used to when I'm not working." Sherlock wrapped his hand around John's.

"You still haven't answered me about the drugs."

Sherlock shrugged. "I was already a freak, I'd been responsible for breaking up my family, I was angry. Perhaps they all fit."

"You are not a freak, and you broke nothing." John squeezed his hand. "You were a child Sherlock, and the people who should have understood you didn't and that confused them, there was no reason for you to be confused by yourself as well."

Sherlock sighed, "Perhaps."

"Were you confused by your sexuality as well?" Sherlock coloured at John's question.

"Isn't everyone at some point? I tried it all John, every variation possible. I would sleep with people for comfort, for drugs, for spite. I've never been loved though and once upon a time that would not have bothered me, now it does."

"Because?" John prompted.

"You confuse the hell out of me." Sherlock's laugh was small.

"Just tell me, do you want this thing between us to be more? Or are you happy to be as we were?"

"More." Sherlock nodded. "I just don't want to lose myself in you, and right now I think that would be far too easy for me to do."

John put his arm around his friend and cuddled him close.

~~~)))(((~~~

There was only a brief tremor in Sherlock's face as he saw the front of Scotland Yard, John wasn't sure if it was anxiety or anticipation and watched his friend.

The worlds only consulting detective got out of the black Jag, straightened his spine and shoved his hands deep into his pockets. The arrogance was back, the insolent smirk was back and John realised it was anticipation. Like a hound on the scent, Sherlock's mind had stuttered for a while but it was back and woe betide the man or woman that stood in his path today.

His long strides took him to the front desk where he was buzzed through, the desk sergeant with over ten years service shrank back from the enigma that was Holmes. People looked at him with reverence, awe and just a hint of suspicion and he took it all in his stride.

"Sherlock?" Sally Donovan was by his side as he entered the squad room and smiled up at the man.

"Now that is unnerving." Sherlock intoned and to John's great surprise Sally let loose a laugh.

"Probably, are you ok?"

"Yes." Back to his taciturn best and Sherlock stopped and cocked his head to one side. "New man?"

"One that's not married." She smiled again her dark features flushed.

Geoff grabbed John by the elbow as he ushered him out of earshot. "You sure he's up to this?"

"Yeah he should be fine. We have the ulcer under control and the rest will heal in time, but he's ok. Just make sure he eats." John handed Lestrade a bag which contained several power bars.

"What all of it?" Lestrade peered into the bag and back up to Watson.

"Good Lord no, at least one, the others you can keep in your drawer." John smiled.

"Yeah ok. Where are you going?"

"Back to check on Baker Street, make sure Mrs Hudson hasn't thrown our things to the gutter." John smiled and turned back to Sherlock who caught up with them.

"You're not staying?" Only Sherlock's eyes betrayed his fear, this would be the first time in weeks he would be on his own.

"Sherlock, you're with Geoff, you will be fine, I promise." John shoved a power bar into his pocket and turned the collar of his coat up.

"Oh goody, the Freak and his pet soldier boy are back." Anderson sneered across the squad room. Before anyone could take action or speak, Watson was across the room in four strides and had belted the man squarely in the jaw, Anderson toppled onto a desk and slid to the ground. He looked up to see Watson above him, hands clenched in fists of rage.

"Get up." John's voice was rough and quiet as Lestrade intervened and began to help Anderson to stand.

"John." Sherlock put his hand on Watsons shoulder and could feel the tension coiled in the smaller man. "Don't it's not necessary."

"Arrest him, that's bloody assault." Anderson snivelled from the floor as he wiped his hand across the bloody nose.

"No don't think it is, saw you fall." Dimmock said as he watched with interest.

"So did I." A new voice joined the group and Watson was stunned when he recognised Sally Donovan.

"You're going to side with the..." Before he could get the words out Lestrade accidently dropped him back to the floor.

"One word, one more and you'll be on the Isle of Man analysing dog shit for the rest of your miserable life." Lestrade snarled.

The tension left the smaller man as he backed away and guided Sherlock into Geoff's office whilst he dealt with the discipline of his staff. "See, I'm not the only one who stands up for you." John brushed his hand across the high forehead and through the dark hair, Sherlock shoved his hands deep into his pockets and blushed. "I'll be back in under two hours, will that be long enough?"

"John stop fretting." Sherlock smiled.

"Should be." Lestrade answered as he entered the room.

"That thing you did, that was, um, good." Sherlock frowned as he sat down and closed his eyes.

"You're welcome. Now about my statement."

John left he needed a breath of air, needed a dose of normalcy and pondered albeit briefly if they could relocate to Baker Street before Mummy arrived. He doubted it, but then you could always live in hope.


	19. Chapter 19

_**A/N: Thank you again for your support - so you know we have maybe 1 to 2 chapters to go for this, it will be followed by Morass: Interlude which will include John meeting Mummy, and then Morass: Crucible, so stay tuned! stay safe! and know I love you all...Raven**_

"So basically, despite your pathological urge to run all over bloody London you didn't think it prudent to advise me that you were going to meet a mad bomber at midnight at a pool. And that said mad bomber was the elusive Moriarty who, according to you, is the figurehead of a massive organisation that seeks to corrupt the fabric of our society. And that this man who was clearly insane, a trait which we know runs in the family was someone you could manage to handle on your own?" Lestrade rumbled his deep voice low gravel over his anger as he glowered at the younger man who sat implacably in the chair opposite him.

"Are you done?"

"God, no! I've only just bloody started. Honestly Sherlock for a brilliant man you can be an absolute moron at times. Think, it, through."

"I had."

"Really?" There was no way to mistake the sarcasm that dripped from the Yards finest. "Had you really thought it through? What would have happened if we had lost you?" Lestrade sat down behind his desk and threw the stress ball against the glass wall. Both men watched it bounce harmlessly to the floor.

"I'm irrelevant." Sherlock said at length.

"Bull shit! You're selfish. Your death would have served no purpose Sherlock, it would have given them, the countless crims out there a free run, it would have cost lives other than your own, surely you can't be that naive as to not recognise that."

"Lectures Lestrade?" Sherlock still hadn't looked away from the man's face.

"Not that you'd bloody well listen to. In future and God help me I mean it this time if you ever, ever do such a blatantly stupid thing again I will have no compunction in locking you up for the foreseeable future. Do you understand?"

"I am not a child to be bellowed at, nor am I in your employ, so just exactly where do you think you get the right to bully me?"

"Because, believe it or not, I do care. John was right, I am careless of you personally and professionally, and I will not risk you again."

Sherlock steepled his hands under his chin in prayer position and narrowed his eyes. Obviously the dynamic had changed since he'd been at the Yard last, he couldn't quite put his finger on it until he thought back to John's altercation with Anderson, and now Lestrade was being considerate of him.

"John." Sherlock closed his eyes, the briefest smile on his lips.

"Pardon?"

"Oh nothing ignore me, just thinking out loud." Sherlock dismissed as his eyes scanned the squad room and the running board. Ten missing persons, eleven no twelve robberies, five murders two faces he knew, judging by the files on the overcrowded desk, and he flicked his eyes over the red circle on the desk calendar and remembered it was review time.

"So let's make this playing field a little more even. I will continue to ask for your help, because I know I need you and I know you'll help yourself to my cases anyway. So to that end you will be given official special clearance and will receive a stipend for expenses."

Sherlock growled and Lestrade held up a warning hand. "You will accept the offer or I will lock you out completely."

"No you won't."

"Are you sure? Because right now I am sorely tempted."

"I'm sure." Sherlock's face remained impassive but his voice was smug. "I already have special clearance but if you want to make it official that's entirely up to you. As to the money, I have no need of it, and it would give you far too much perceived control over me. I will not allow that." Sherlock stood up abruptly all fluid elegance as he settled with preternatural grace his hands behind his back and looked out into the squad room from the glassed office. "I will however acquiesce to your request, and here I make it clear it is entirely for John's sake I will grant such contract, if I am ever in a situation again and I can contact you I will."

Lestrade's jaw hung open for a second as he looked at the younger man's solemn reflection. "For John's sake?" The smile erupted on his face before he could control it and Sherlock refused to turn around, the scowl visible in the reflective glass.

"You heard me. Now I need access to a spare interview room and files."

"It'll take a bit; the rooms are full, in fact if you're not too busy I could do with your opinion."

"My opinion?" Sherlock turned back around.

"Oh don't look at me like that; I'm not going to ask you to find a missing cat. I've got a suspect in one of the rooms we picked up early this morning. We know he's involved in a drug deal gone wrong, I've got three bodies in the morgue, but we can't pin it on him. Will you take a look? See if you can give us the tell?"

"Forensics first, although if Anderson did them I can assume they are wrong."

"No, new kid, Ireland did them, he's good."

Sherlock insolently planted himself in Lestrade's seat and scanned the files for a full twenty minutes before he said another word.

"Show me the suspect." He said just as abruptly as he had fallen silent and Lestrade had to jog to catch up to him as he wove unerringly through the maze of Scotland Yard to Interview Room 1. He stood in the adjoining room and watched through the two way glass.

It was at that precise moment the suspect turned his face up to the mirror and smiled, and Sherlock stumbled back as if struck. The breath left his chest, his heart rate sped up and he clutched at the wall for support in the same instant Lestrade put a hand on his shoulder to steady him. The colour drained from Holmes face as he forced his head back to look at the man in the orange overalls who drummed his fingers on the table.

"His name is Karl Renton." Sherlock said breathlessly though Lestrade was nonplussed as to how he could have that information. Sherlock's long fingers tapped on his phone as he set two text messages, the first to his brother.

_You missed one, SH._

The other to John;

_Need you now. SH_

John answered first as he text back that he was on his way and from nowhere a chair was pushed under his shaking legs. "Last seen masquerading as a paramedic for Moriarty." Sherlock looked up; his eyes held a faint trace of terror as he steeled his treacherous body into submission and drew several deep breaths.

"Bloody hell. You sure?" Lestrade crouched down to maintain eye level with the younger man.

"Absolutely, it's a face I'll never forget. As to the murders in the morgue. Your first victim John Spiteri well known local dealer, the second I don't have a name for, but he looks like the muscle. Renton was not meant to be there, but the third boy went in to the flat to conduct a transaction. He goes by the street name of Sav, real name Nikos Savvas, Greek family in Brighton, father drinks. Sav recognised him; don't know how Renton probably bragged. Sav was one of the friends who rescued me." Lestrade pulled up a chair and laid a hand to gentle the distraught man, facts fell from his lips as he trembled. "Four bullets all from a gun owned by Renton, traces of narcotics under his nails, in his hair brick dust from the ceiling when the first shot went wild. Swab the teacup at Spiteri's flat it will put Renton in the room. Dark stains on his teeth, nicotine stains on his fingers, look for cigarette butts, Middle Eastern non-filtered, it will have traces of DNA. The gun." Sherlock scrubbed his hands into his hair as he visualized the area and discarded unlikely possibilities. "Gun powder residue on his fingers, no doubt, probably prints on the bullets, but you have to wait for autopsy. Unless you get the forensics to look up, bullet in the roof might have a partial. The gun dumped, second bin on Grosvenor Street along with the drugs and money, it's a drop point look behind the bin at the back. Ballistics should tie him to two of the murders on your board. Both of them homeless, both of them involved in helping me." Sherlock stopped and looked at Lestrade who reached a hand forward and wiped the tears from the high cheekbones and held Sherlock's fragile long fingers in his large warm hands. Gentle hands for a copper Sherlock noted absently.

"Oh Sherlock," Lestrade said softly. "You have my word I would never have bought you down here if I had of known. I am sorry."

Holmes tilted his head and looked at DI Lestrade, for the first time he really did look, he observed everything, but sometimes you just needed to see the person. Sometimes it _was_ simple and he smiled a small crocked smile.

"How could you? Mycroft thought he had them all." Sherlock pulled his coat around himself and wiped his face with his hand.

"Coffee?"

"Not allowed, tea though would be good. You have enough to make a case."

"Yes, yes I do, but I don't think I'll need to. Mycroft will be on his way."

"No, he is sending people though."

"And John?"

"On his way back. I probably scared him."

"Probably, you scare the shit out of me sometimes. Come on, I'll buy you a cuppa."

~~)))(((~~

John all but ran through the halls of Scotland Yard, the text from Lestrade told them they were in the commissary. Sherlock's head was visible above the back of the booth and John slowed his pace.

On the table in front of him was a pot of tea, an earl grey teabag tag hung from the side and in front of him a half eaten chicken sandwich. He saw the tremor in the long fingers as they picked the chicken from the bread and he ate delicately. Lestrade was hunched over a cup of black coffee as John slid into the seat next to Holmes.

"What happened?" Heedless of social propriety Sherlock leaned against him for warmth, his breath ghosted over John's cheek as he wrapped a long fingered hand around the Doctors sturdy one. Lestrade watched as John squeezed the fingers back but didn't let go.

"Triple homicide, suspect was found fleeing from the scene. Local copper thought it was suspicious and pulled him in for questioning. Turns out he is the fake Ambo that kidnapped Sherlock."

The coldness in John's voice was enough to drop the ambient temperature by several degrees. "Where is he now?"

"Mycroft's people are on the way to pick him up."

"He killed Dharma and Vinny, Sav is dead too." Sherlock intoned his voice flat but his body still trembled.

"Fuck." Was all John could say as he leant back against the seat and pulled Sherlock's head down onto his shoulder.

Lestrade took it all in, it was only a matter of time he concluded but for all his bluster and face Sherlock had been shaken badly and John was his rock. He prayed the rock never crumbled, not now that Sherlock knew that it was safe to feel, that would just be too many ways left of cruel.

"John?" Sherlock's voice was quiet as he sat back up and straightened himself from the embrace. "People will talk."

"They seldom do anything else." John answered back and smiled.

"Moriarty isn't housekeeping. This was all Renton, trying to buy his way back into the organization." Sherlock sounded disgusted.

"Still it won't go amiss to keep an eye on Angelo." Lestrade offered.

"Mycroft has already sent Joe over." Sherlock said softly as he scrubbed his hands across his face.

"Did you take your antibiotics?" John reached across him and picked up the forgotten cup, topped it up with fresh tea, and drank from it.

"Forgot." Sherlock mumbled and rummaged in his pocket for the strip of pills and dutifully took one with the remaining tea in the cup.

"Don't!" John held a warning finger up to Lestrade as he saw the man beam.

"Oh come on, it's cute."

"Cute? I'm a combat trained war veteran and skilled surgeon, I don't do cute Lestrade." John intoned and for the first time ever Lestrade saw the shit eating grin spread on Sherlock's face as he started to laugh. Not the polite half giggle or the little hiccup that he sometimes gave when he triumphed over a case, but a full blown laugh. And it was deep and musical and John looked affronted at his friend.

"Sorry John."

John drew a deep breath and counted to a trillion before he looked again at the two men at the table, he tried to glower but that just made Sherlock worse as he wiped the tears that streamed down his face.

"Honestly, sorry." Sherlock stammered as he clutched his stomach as the cramp hit but he continued to laugh and falling about in mirth with him was DI Lestrade. He, Sherlock Holmes the most uptight, unfeeling, uncaring, arrogant son of a bitch on the planet tried valiantly to bring himself under control and finally he managed it, just.

And then John said that one word that sobered him up completely. He leant on the Formica table top, clasped the cup in his hands and said softly. "Couch."

Unfortunately when Sherlock managed to bring himself back under control, that was the final nail in the coffin for Lestrade as he looked agape at both men and then began to laugh.

John threw his hands in the air. "I give up."

Sherlock scooted over in the seat and pushed himself against the Doctor, from shoulder to hip and down to knee; he thought for a second and smiled. "Really sorry." He said softly his eyes large and unshadowed for the first time ever and John patted him as you would a recalcitrant child.

"It's ok."

"Do I still have to sleep on the couch?"

"We'll see. Are you ready?"

"You, ah, haven't looked at those files you wanted yet." Lestrade reminded him.

"They can keep." And now John's mouth fell open. Sherlock was married, _actually married_, to his work and here he was turning a date down with the wife?

"Ok Lestrade what have you done with the real Sherlock?"

"I think maybe you found him." Lestrade got up to go. "Really couch?"

"Piss off." Sherlock bit back and Lestrade continued on his way, after all he had a suspect to hand over to the Home Office and 3 murders solved. The paperwork would be endless.

"Are you ok?" John poured the last of the tea into the cup and swallowed it.

"I'm tired." Sherlock admitted, but then turned in the seat to look directly at the man who meant so much more to him than he could have ever dreamt possible. "I'm tired of being afraid. I'm tired of falling apart at the most inconvenient times. I think I'm done with that now." Sherlock rubbed his hands together. "So do you want to go home?"

"Are, are you propositioning me?" John wasn't certain, though the quick silver brain was mercurial at best and he couldn't be sure if this was a mood swing, manipulation or finally he got to see the man. Either way the stage lost a great actor just as science lost a great reasoner when Holmes took up the mantel of Criminal investigator, so John reasoned it didn't hurt to be sure.

"Ah John, do you actually need me to proposition you?" Sherlock was smiling again as he wrapped his coat around the spare frame and turned up the collar.

"What? Wait? Sherlock?" Bugger, John shook his head ruefully he wasn't sure but he thought he may have just been Royally Had as he jogged to catch up to his friend.

~~~)))(((~~~

Anderson was white with fury; he glared at Sally Donovan and threw the files down on the desk she currently occupied outside of DI Lestrade's office.

"Look I know you don't get it Mike, but honestly do you think it's wise to continue?"

"Wise? Wise?" Mike muttered darkly aware of the faces that peered above petitions to watch the unfolding drama. Despite his ego, Anderson was not widely liked, but then neither was Sherlock Holmes, problem was, Mike only picked up the pieces of the puzzle Sherlock had already solved and in doing so, made the general PC Plods job just that little bit easier. He of course wasn't widely liked either, but then most assumed he was a cold, calculating dangerous bastard who would one day turn and bite the hand that fed it, in this case, Lestrade and by way of him Scotland Yard in general.

"Every time you try to get the better of him, he hands you your arse on a plate usually gift wrapped, give it up." Sally advised as she studiously ignored the lanky tech.

"You've gone soft Donovan! Just because you have _**other interests**_ doesn't mean that we have to be on opposite sides."

"See now this is the issue, you carry on about sides, and you don't even know which one you're on. Do you have an actual reason to be here or are you just trying to annoy the crap out of me?" Sally looked up and bit the inside of her lip, his eyes were starting to bruise and the steri-tape across his nose made him look like an annoyed squirrel.

"Listen you bitch." Anderson leaned over the seated woman and snarled.

"Oh really Anderson, wasn't being flat on your arse once today enough for you?" Sherlock's voice was a lazy drawl as he stood back.

"Yeah and who's going to plant me back on it? You or your little soldier boy?"

"First if you think for a second you can take me Anderson." Sherlock walked forward crowding the man's space and making him take a step backward. "Then I suggest you give it your best shot." Sherlock inspected the nails on his right hand, strange eyes hooded from lowered lids and he looked up, like a fallen avenging angel. "No? You'd rather bully a woman? How very masculine of you." Another step and Anderson continued his retreat. "Second, his name is John Watson, Major Watson or Doctor. Any or all salutations are acceptable."Sherlock leaned close and Sally Donovan's eyes were alight with glee as she heard the next words fall from those beautiful lips like a caress. "And I can tell you, with all due respect to my friend, he is in no way little."

"Fucking perverted Freak. Fucking Poof!" Anderson spat and Sherlock allowed him to rush past.

"Ten inches Anderson." Sherlock said quietly, all eyes fell to Watson who felt the heat rise up on his face, was it too much for his friend to ever play nice?

Fate was finally on John's side when a small kicking and screaming child was dragged through the squad room.

She disconnected herself from the Detective who bought her in and ducked and wove through the maze of desk and landed with a resounding wallop against Sherlock's legs.

Then very carefully, he bent down, picked her up and hugged her to his chest as she gripped him with a fervour that belied her tiny stature. She had pretty red curls, a sweet face and dressed well in chain store clothes, her eyes however were significantly older than her years.

"Lucy?" Sherlock said quietly. "You need to let go of my hair."

She did and hugged him again. "Them they want to take me home, and I ain't goin!"

He nodded solemnly. "Quiet right too." With a deft twist he perched her with practiced ease on his hip and headed into Lestrade's office.

The Detective, Wilson, Sherlock finally put a name to the face, was young, and new and very very keen. He sighed internally; this wasn't going to end well. Wilson was headed his way with a look of pure determination on his face.

"Family Services will be here in an hour to pick her up."He said through gritted teeth.

"No, no I don't think so." John intervened.

"Fucking hell," Wilson growled and was pulled up short by Lestrade.

"Child in the room, mind your language." He turned a gimlet glare back to Sherlock. "What's this all about then?"

It was Lucy who spoke up, her little voice choked with sobs and defiance. "Them they want to take me back," she pointed an accusing finger at the young Detective. "To me Mum, problem is she's usually high, and her boyfriend, who is not my father." That was emphasised obviously a previous conversation. "Gets to look after me, and he wants sex." Tears ran down her face unheeded as she hiccupped in Sherlock's arms, he held her closer. "It's why I ran away. And they want to take me back there! You can't let them, you can't." She begged and Sherlock began to sway to calm her.

"In my office, now." Lestrade ordered.

"Surely this child has told you this." Lestrade barked at Wilson.

"Yes Sir, but she's well she's a street kid and we thought, that family services can look out for her."

"Where is the compassion?" Sherlock asked. "Or the honesty, truth is you just didn't bother to listen, you assumed she was lying, that she enjoyed living rough on the street."

John held back a choked sound and held his arms out to the child who finally relented and went to him.

"Hey." He bent down and wiped her face with his hands, every pore the caring professional he was. "Stop crying, Sherlock will sort it out."

"Promise?"

"Well you'll have to believe me just like I had to believe you, remember?" She nodded and sat quietly on his knee.

"Family Services will put her in Foster Care until we can determine if charges should be laid," Wilson lectured.

"And will most likely return her to her Mother." Lestrade sat down heavily, he had kids, and he hated people who hurt them.

"How did she come to your attention anyway?" John asked.

"Oh I did what Mr H told me, if I saw something bad and could stop it, I should tell the police, because even though most of them are idiots, the really care and they would sort it like." Lestrade groaned he could hear Sherlock saying exactly those words. "So when I saw Marnie being beaten up by her no good pimp I told the police when they found her what happened. And then the bastards nicked me!"

"Sherlock, there are not a lot of options." Lestrade said.

John stood up and peered around the room. "Angelo." He said softly and to the utter surprise of John and the entire Scotland Yard force who always, without fail, watched when Sherlock was in the building, grabbed John's face in his hands and kissed him softly on the lips.

"This is why I love you." He said triumphantly as he pulled his phone out and made a call. "Hello Celia." He walked outside.

"Celia is Angelo's wife. They can take Lucy here and give her a place until you get sorted. In the meantime, it's probably a good idea if someone other than Detective Wilson, could take her down and get her something to eat." John kept her small hand in his.

"Could go home with you Doctor John." She looked up hopefully.

"No I don't think that's a good idea, besides you like Angelo."

"Yep." She agreed. "Had to try though didn't I?" Lestrade waved Donovan in who took charge of the girl and dismissed Wilson.

"Wow." Lestrade couldn't stop the grin from spreading.

"Oh good Lord, don't start Geoff. He has no idea what he's doing." John slumped in the seat.

"Actually I think he does." Lestrade watched the animated conversation Sherlock was having through the glass. "I've known him for years John, years. And I can tell you I have never seen him laugh, or be honest with anyone other than you. And since you know I know you love him I suggest you give him a chance to prove himself to you."

"He doesn't need to prove anything." John admitted.

"Well then."

"What?" John snapped.

"He kissed you, in front of every officer I have, he was calm and compassionate and dare I say loving to a small child, he's never done that. No one here has ever seen that anyway, he cried when he saw Renton and he let me hold his hand and look after him. John, he's just worked out it ok to feel."

"I know."

"Sorted. I saw Sally take Lucy down for food, Angelo and Celia will be here in the next hour, they have agreed to Foster her for the foreseeable. You ready John?"

"Yep." John rubbed his hand on his jeans and stood up; Sherlock looked at his face and then back to the faces of the ever eager police force that continued to openly watch every move he made.

"Not good?" Sherlock asked.

"Guess it depends." John answered as he walked past, god it was so totally wrong to find the look of confusion on Sherlock's face so adorable.

"On?" Sherlock pouted.

"Whether you intend to do it again." John smirked and headed out, Sherlock smiled, looked back to Lestrade who grinned and followed _his_ doctor.


	20. Chapter 20

_**A/N: Ok here be the final part of Morass. There will be two companion pieces, Interlude in where John meets Mummy and Crucible where Sherlock officially becomes the good man, and Moriarty returns! Thank you for staying with me on this ride. You have been awesome. LadyGreyTea, CrypticNymph who have stayed with me from the very beginning! To all of you, my lovelies...thank you...and now ...**_

"I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity. During these fits of absolute consciousness, I used drugs - God only knows how often or how much. As a matter of course, my frenemies referred the insanity to the drugs, rather than the drugs to the insanity." Sherlock had looked out the window of the black Jaguar and refused to meet John's eyes, aware and oddly afraid of the revulsion he may be met with.

"There are other ways to get an adrenaline high." John words were soft but even in the back of the car, there was no projected reproach or scorn and Sherlock scowled. It was rare for someone to know him; even rarer for someone to _want_ to know him.

"This is why you confuse me." Sherlock muttered darkly.

"Why? Because I treat you as human? Or because I care enough to try to understand?" John quirked his eye brow up and another piece of the puzzle that was Sherlock locked into place.

"Either, or, both." Sherlock's heavy Balstaff coat did little to mask his discomfit as he shrugged.

"So I never thought you'd be that good with kids." John changed the subject and he could feel the gratitude roll of his companion in waves.

"Most kids are just snotty beasts, but they are a product of their environment, they are not given a chance, and mostly they are just simple little creatures with so much more potential than they are allowed to express."

"Still you seem very comfortable with them."

"I don't bite the heads of kittens either John." Sherlock huffed further down in his coat and scowled.

"No? Wow, you mean really _**ALL**_ the rumours were lies?" John chuckled.

"Probably not all, you have a great deal of patience with me John. I, uh, appreciate it."

"I have a great deal more impatience for idiots who think it's prudent or wise to try to belittle a woman or someone they don't understand."

"Ah yes, Anderson. Mind you, it wasn't the first time he saw you angry was it?" Sherlock closed his eyes and rubbed his top lip with a long finger.

"No, probably won't be the last. But ten inches? Flattered Sherlock, but not ten inches."

Sherlock dropped his gaze to John's crotch. "No I'd estimate just above eight."

John dropped his head back against the seat of the car and watched lazily as the traffic made them crawl through the streets.

"Have you ever wanted to do the whole domestic thing John?"

"Married with two point five kids, house in the country, Jag in the drive?" John smiled but it was strained before he relaxed, he knew that Sherlock was studying him, as one may study an unknown substance under a microscope. He had also learned not to flinch from the gaze. He drew in a deep breath when he realised that Sherlock wasn't going to break the impasse and he closed his eyes again. "I was married once Sherlock, and had all those dreams, and more, but you know, reality isn't nearly as gentle. It was summer, 1996 and we were in Manchester visiting Em's mum. I had graduated in the top ten percent. Life was good, very good in fact Em was pregnant and just like any normal couple we were blissfully ignorant of life outside our bubble."

Sherlock felt the bile rise, he knew, in his gut he knew. "IRA bomb."

"Yeah the ceasefire was official a couple of weeks later, too late for us of course, and all of a sudden bloody Sin Fienn and Gerry Adams were hero's. She died in my arms of massive trauma."

Sherlock was stunned into silence, he knew so much, but never knew this about John, he could have found out for sure, but he never bothered, he just took the man and his gentle gift of love as the miracle he had prayed for for so long.

"You joined the army not long after."

"Yeah, I couldn't stay and see the shattered looks on their faces, or the totally irrational guilt I had, so I channelled the anger into something else and joined the army. By the time I was shot, I was ready to pack it in, asked to redeploy to a hospital." John shrugged again. "It, was a long time ago."

"Some things you never forget."

"I don't regret it Sherlock, I've seen too many horrible things to regret the good ones. I still love them; still think about them from time to time. And before you say it, I will not regret this." He reached over and twined Sherlock's gloved hand with his own. "Now before I have to go back to the Yard and begin pulling Geoff's nails out, will you tell me what happened?"

"You know what happened." Sherlock hedged.

"The mechanics yes, but not the emotion. Tell me what you were feeling Sherlock. Let me help you understand." John's eyes blazed at his companion who was weary beyond all belief.

"It was fear John, just fear. Lestrade was, um, he was good. He took care of me and it wasn't personal, he didn't mean it."

"Mmm." John folded his arms across his chest.

"You're angry."

"Good, good deduction." He said with a tiny scornful sneer.

"Why? Oh I've upset you, again." Sherlock stuck his abandoned hand into his coat pocket. "Sometimes I can still feel their hands on me." The voice was soft.

"Ah." John uncrossed his arms and turned to face his friend. "You don't like to be touched, and they stole from you."

"No, that's not true. I do like to be touched; only I never, well almost never, well not until you, was I touched by someone who cared about me who didn't have to. And they did steal from me John; they stole my ability to defend myself. They took parts of me away and never gave them back, and I was lost. I don't even damn well know if I can be alone anymore. Me, John, I'm fucking Sherlock Holmes the world's only consulting detective for Christ's sake and I don't know if I can even manage to be by myself anymore. I have become dependent!" his voice had risen with all the anger and frustration and ire to end on the smallest of sounds, a choked word that sounded so much like a sob John almost wept.

"Ah love," Sherlock stopped the tirade just as the car pulled smoothly into the driveway, "you've been dependent on me for a while, and you just didn't want to admit it."

"I know. I need." Sherlock looked for the entire world like a man ready to head to the gallows. "I need to know I can be by myself."

"Do you want me to move out?" John asked softly.

Sherlock grabbed him by the hands. "No, no, no. That's not it, but I have to regain my independence John, I have to know I'm still me."

The doctor slid across the seat and placed a gentle kiss against the younger man's mouth that was tenderly received. "I'll wait."

"I do love you; I am in fact, in love with you." Sherlock announced.

"Yeah, I know. Come on, Mycroft will begin to worry."

~~~)))(((~~~

"Unfortunately your hypothesis has merit." Mycroft intoned as Sherlock swept into the study on his own. John had headed down to the clinic to deal with a few minor household issues.

"After all these years you still manage to doubt me." Sherlock sat down and put his feet up on the chair, he almost hissed as the pressure was relieved.

"You have a vast intellect Midge, cool and calculating, with no error for judgement, only rational explanations. Sometimes, how you draw your conclusions is almost beyond even my understanding."

"Which makes them, until proved correct a little farfetched, I didn't realise your brain was becoming so pedestrian."

Mycroft raised his eyebrow and tilted his head to one side. "Cheeky."

"Often." Sherlock grinned. "What's happening with the wife?"

"Ah, well I've made her an offer; she has refused it, so I may have to resort to more, persuasive methods to get her to comply."

"Divorce?"

"Messy, but necessary, even Mummy thinks so."

"Quiet right." Sherlock nodded. "Speaking of Mummy."

"Ah yes, she will arrive on Saturday, would you like to pick her up with me from the airport?"

"Can John come to?"

"Absolutely." Mycroft nodded his approval. "Our people in Korea have found the Plutonium and have managed to impede its journey. And the diamonds that have been floated are now under investigation. You did well Midge."

"And again with the Midge." Sherlock huffed as he rubbed his stomach lightly.

"Did you eat?"

"Yes I ate, will you stop being considerate it's disturbing."

"I resent that, I'm always considerate, you just don't recognise it."

"I see a lot more than you realise."

"This is why you would be invaluable to me, if you were to be less aggressive, and more open to working on a consultancy basis for the agencies."

"I'll look at it alright? If I think it's demeaning or I'm too busy then I won't, see we can be on the same side."

Mycroft laughed, "yes we can unfortunately the side is usually yours."

"Problem?"

"Not really. I've spoken to Mrs Hudson, lovely woman. Your rent is paid and John has arranged for the cleaners to make the flat presentable, you wouldn't want Mummy to see the head in the fridge would you?"

"You threw out my head?" Sherlock glowered.

"Honestly Sherlock, this truce is fragile at best, do you think I would antagonise you unnecessarily?"

Sherlock huffed. "As I was saying, I've arranged for a few other items to be installed, another fridge for your body parts, another microwave that type of thing. The kitchen is fully stocked, and I've taken the liberty of updating your bedroom furniture."

"Because?"

"Logic, your room is the larger so it now has a king bed, and John's a double. Wherever you decide to rest, there will be room."

"Thank you."

"Welcome, I won't be in for dinner I have an appointment."

~~~)))(((~~~~

Sally Donovan filed the last of the reports from her desk and caught up with Lestrade in his office.

"Press conference tomorrow Boss at eleven, wear a suit and tie, and then you need to speak to the PM's office in regards to security."

"Good. Anything else?"

"I'm sorry Sir, about Sherlock and John. I was wrong and I've told Sherlock that as well."

"You did?" Lestrade put the pen down and scrutinised her. "Why?"

"Because it's not necessary, and he is wrong, he is different and I don't trust that one day he will get bored, at least I didn't trust it, but he's got John now."

"Sherlock Holmes is a great man, one we need."

"I know. Mike is jealous."

"He going to be any problem for you Sally?"

"I don't think so Sir."

"Alright go home." After sixteen hours in a squad room, she didn't need to be told twice. Unaware of the heated gaze of her former lover. Anderson would no so easily be discarded as he followed her out of the building.

~~~)))(((~~~

It was late and still Sherlock fidgeted, he'd watched Dr Who of all things until his head nearly bled, and then a late night talk show and still he couldn't go to bed. The embargo started tonight, he wanted, needed to know he could go one night on his own without having to give in and go to John.

So far he was extraordinarily pleased with himself. He looked at the laptop again and clicked away in random arcs and felt a warm hand on his arm. The laptop hit the ground and he spun the Jack knife in his hand.

John reached down and took the knife from him. "No sharp things Sherlock."

"I wasn't going to use it on myself." Sherlock protested a little too quickly as John pulled him to his feet and walked him slowly to the bedroom. Holmes's heart sank when he realised it was his room, but here John stopped, and removed the robe from his thin shoulders, pulled the cotton T-shirt away from the waist band of his pyjamas and pushed his into the bed.

Mesmerised he watched as John slid out of his robe to leave him stark naked and climbed in beside the younger man.

"See I couldn't get to sleep either, because I've grown quiet fond of your body next to mine. Since I came to get you..." John let the sentence trail as Sherlock beamed up at him. "And since you love me, and are in fact in love with me, I thought it might be time to do something about it."

John kissed him on the mouth softly and then swabbed his tongue across the plump lips. Sherlock moaned low in his throat as the soft scratch of Johns chin rasped down his throat to his chest. Strong hands petted him with great care, he touched work roughened fingers to sharp smooth collar bones, lips to the pulse point and beyond.

Compliant no longer Sherlock's hands danced across the broad back, down to the trim hips and muscular thighs. His hands fondled underneath to the thick cock that sprang from golden curls and gently cupped the pendulous balls. John leaned up on his hands, and looked down the length of his body as he felt the long fingers stroke and tease him and he bit his lip.

Holy Mary, the man was sex on a plate, Sherlock's pale skin and strange eyes watched him with a conviction that would have humbled a lesser man. Dark curls spread against the soft white pillow, a flush that stained the lovely pale skin and the obscene little mewls that echoed in that rich masculine baritone, and John had to push away from the fallen debauched angel on the bed. His body and Sherlock both protested at the loss.

"I want you." John said simply.

Sherlock sat up and captured the Doctor in his arms again, his lips and hands never idle as the warmth spread on both sets of skin. "Nice change." Sherlock muttered against the underside of John's neck.

"What?"

"Never been told that before."

John sat back on his heels as he worked the pyjama bottoms from Sherlock's hips. "You're kidding right?"

"No, usually I get told to turn over so they can fuck me." Sherlock attached his lips to John's neck and licked. Clever fingers worked across his chest and followed the little line of hair that travelled like an arrow down to his groin.

John put both hands on the sides of Sherlock's head and pushed him back a little way to look directly into the eyes of the man he loved.

"Not this time." John climbed off him and for a moment Sherlock thought he had offended the doctor and then John smiled as his hand coated his erection with lube that smelt of chocolate and cinnamon, he kept the movement slow and languorous as he spread his knees and beckoned to the younger man. "Turn around." John whispered in a voice like raw silk, it scraped every nerve in Sherlock's body with acid fire as it burned through him and he complied but instead of being allowed to lie down he was pulled back into a crouch as John rocked his hips forward and brushed his entrance. Sherlock shuddered and grabbed fists of the sheet as John gently and lovingly prepared him. Firm strokes across his buttocks and up to the small of his back, the tiny waist that he reached his arm around and pulled him back flush against his body.

Sherlock grunted as he felt himself impaled and the fire was back, it licked its way up his spine and into his heart and then John stopped moving, he was held by the strong arm around his waist and the other that was tangled in the thick curls at the back of his head.

"Look down." John instructed as he used the handful of hair to turn the other man's head to the side and rasped his tongue up the long arc of neck. "Spread your knees love." And Sherlock complied as John rocked him in the intimate embrace.

Sherlock tilted his head to one side and looked down his body. Too pale, too ugly and then he heard Johns voice, the tone like warm honey as he filled the crevices in his heart, the ache in his soul as he was pierced sweetly to the core. His own hands flexed on his thighs as Johns hand skimmed up to his nipples and back down across the well defined belly of his lover.

Sherlock arched his back almost bent into a bow as he was rocked, the sweat slicked their bodies as he looked over his shoulder and saw John's eyes on his body, consuming him in a passion he never thought he was capable of.

Their breath became ragged as John pumped his hips forward and angled in towards the pleasure gland and Sherlock gasped. His hands reached behind him and long fingers wrapped in to the soft silken texture of Johns waist and his tempo changed and they both pumped in unison to a rhythm older than time itself.

Sherlock's heart swelled as John grasped his aching cock and began to twist and tug gently, the friction of being so full, of being so loved was more than he could stand and in moments he flung his head back to collide with the solid shoulder behind him, his hands dug painfully into Johns body as he came in endless ribbons across the calloused hand.

John's own climax shattered him, but he held them firm and slowed the frantic race down to small involuntary jerks of his hips as he lifted his hand to his lips and licked Sherlock's seed from his own hands.

Tears streaked Sherlock's face, of relief, of love, of utter joy. He would never remember how John got him into bed, or the blanket up around both of them, or why the next day he didn't wake to the feel of stale sex, instead of feeling used and abused, he woke to love, and to tawny eyes that regarded him steadily.

His only answer was to drown in the lips again as he snuggled into John's chest.

"I forgot to tell you yesterday." Sherlock mumbled.

"Mmmm." John ran his hands over the wide shoulders of his mate.

"We are picking up Mummy on Saturday." Sherlock beamed.

John went cold, he held Sherlock to his naked torso tighter.

"Really John. You stare down a man with a gun, you invaded Afghanistan, you knocked Anderson on his arse yesterday, and that was one of **THE **most erotic things I've ever seen, and you're afraid of meeting my mother."

"I'm, ah, I'm not afraid love."

"No, of course not." Sherlock said with a smug grin. "You my darling Doctor are absolutely terrified."

"Oh God. I'm screwed." John said in answer to Sherlock's filthy chuckle.


End file.
